


A River Runs Through It

by EgoDominusTuus



Series: Lady in the Lake [1]
Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Assassins, Bootcamp, Death, F/M, Grief, Hurt/Comfort, Love Triangle, M/M, Military, More Tags as it develops, Multi, Polyamory, Post Game, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, Slow Burn, Tiny but Tough, Tough as Nails, Training, eventual spoilers, pre-game, relationships, three way relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-16
Updated: 2016-04-11
Packaged: 2018-05-27 01:30:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 41,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6264175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EgoDominusTuus/pseuds/EgoDominusTuus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>River Wren Malcolm only wanted to live in a world where she could be as tough as the boys. Even the military realized that she had an attitude problem. If the Base Commanders couldn't handle her pre-apocalypse, how will the members of the Brotherhood of Steel deal with the woman in blue?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Delicate and Deadly

**Author's Note:**

> The first four or five chapters of this story are here to establish River as a character and some things that will be pivotal in the plot for later on. If things seem predictable, I promise it's serving a purpose for later shenanigans. Soon, we'll be in the contents of the game... and things will get interesting.
> 
> This is a companion piece for my upcoming story A God Amongst Men (from Maxson's POV, with some fun River/Maxson/Danse goodness, as well as a really in depth view of Arthur Maxson himself)! Stay tuned!

I never really wanted to join the military to begin with - I only did it because I wanted to get out of the little town that I'd grown up in. For a woman, there weren't that many options; I could have gone to college and tried to get into a profession that would be prejudiced because I was a woman. Or... I could join the military.

   The difference between the military and the work pool was, at least I'd be trained to use a rifle before all was said and done. If anyone pissed me off, I could always level a gun at them and tell them that I was trained to use it.

   I'd always been an ace shot at long range - my Ma and Pop both were fine with me taking the guns out for shooting practice. At first, Pop had gone with me, but by the time I was fourteen, he was letting me slip into the backwoods to do it myself - half of the time, the food that we had for dinner was something that I'd brought home. What I didn't have in physical strength, I made up for in my ability to sight a target and see its weakness. My parents named me River Wren, and I'd lived up to my name by spending most of my young life hunting and doing target practice down by the river at the back of our property.

   I lived in a town where everyone knew your name, where everyone knew your business - and where everyone knew that River Wren Malcolm was a girl out of her place. She had dreams, hopes, aspirations to be something more than a simple country girl who was pregnant at sixteen and a housewife before she was twenty.

   I wanted more - and the chorus of voices that demanded I learn my place only drove me out all the more. I moved North when I was seventeen years old, and I was enlisted by the time I was eighteen, just as I was running out of the last bit of money that I had saved up.

   The only home that I had was the boot camp barracks, and the only friend that I had was the rifle that my superior officers immediately realized was my true talent.

   It turned out that I was right - a woman in the military was looked down upon. Not by regulations and standards, but by the haughty men who refused to believe that there was a place for a female within the ranks of their elite task force. I didn't want to be an officer - I didn't want to be a superior to anyone. I just wanted a chance to prove myself.

   Of course, my smart mouth got me into trouble more often than it helped out - the only way that I could keep from lashing out at the sexiest officers who trained me was to literally bite my tongue. I'd tasted blood more often than I'd wanted during training. My mother had called me strong willed - my Pa told me I was a sarcastic smartass.

   I think I was a mixture of the two, and I was damn proud of it.

   I still had a few weeks off of finishing bootcamp when I was pulled aside - not for the first time. There was a gravity to the Officer’s voice though, and I didn’t like it one bit. I didn't want to head to the main office, because I had a feeling it had something to do with the fight that I'd just gotten into. Some Private thought that it was a good idea to stick his hand up my shirt, and I'd broken his nose for it. In turn, he'd clipped me in the jaw and busted my lip. When our commanding officer had asked me what happened, I'd told him that maybe the male portion of our outfit should learn to keep their hands to themselves and take a punch better.

   I had been yelled at for near half-an-hour and then sent to run drills for another two hours... until finally, with sweat drenching my body and my breath coming in sharp gasps, I was called up to the office.

   I hesitated outside of the door, taking a minute to pull my long, dark hair into a bun at the back of my neck. I pulled on my jacket, regardless of how hot I felt, and zipped it up so that my short, curvaceous body was hidden behind army green. After I felt as prepared as I could, I strolled into the office casually, still tasting blood on the back of my tongue from the earlier punch. I didn't care - Marcs had been forced to the infirmary for a broken nose - I'd come out on top in this situation.

   "Malcolm," The base commander gave me a dark look, his eyes swirling with irritation. "This is the fourth time in three weeks that I've heard about you."

   I let my brightest smile flick my features, ignoring the wince of pain that shot through me at the sensation of my lip pulling taut. "That must mean that I'm doing something right."

  "It means that you weren't really cut out to be a team player."  Andrew's voice was flat when he spoke, and I could see the irritation in his gaze. I didn't know if I was being officially kicked out or not... and frankly, I wasn't sure what I would do if I was. I wasn't going to stand down and let men do whatever they pleased just because I was a woman. It wasn't in my code - my makeup. Genetics.

  Whatever you wanted to call it. My Ma and Pa had both taught me that standing up for yourself was the most important thing that you could do - that no matter my size or sex, I was just as good as everyone else, and I deserved the same respect. I wasn't going to afford it to anyone who wouldn't grant me the same courtesy. "Sir, if I may, Marcs wasn't being much of a team player, trying to grope me."

   "I'm aware of the situation, Malcolm." His voice still held that tone, and I wasn't sure what was behind it. He seemed pissed about something, and it seemed to be more than the fact that he was reprimanding me. "I wonder if you're aware of the gravity of it, as well."

   I was, but I wasn't going to say it. He didn't need to know that I _knew_  breaking a fellow Private's nose wasn't the best move I'd ever made. But still. I had the grace to let my eyes fall downward, thick lashes a half moon on my cheeks.

   "That's what I thought. The thing is, Private, I thought about simply chucking you out." My heart sank. "It's clear that you're not made for this team building stuff, for being part of a unit, a squad." My chest burned because I knew that he was right. I just hadn't wanted to deal with that fact. Worse, I wasn't sure what I would do, if I weren't here. In the months that I'd been training, I'd realized that I really _enjoyed_  parts of it.

   It seemed that Andrews was aware of that as well, because his voice was contrite when he continued. "However, all of your instructors have told me that you're an ace shot - they said that they haven't seen a sniper with your capabilities in the last twenty-five years. Nevermind the fact that you're an ace in stealth, and you could get in and out of multiple situations without anyone suspecting a damn thing because you're so--" My eyes snapped up, a scowl flicking my features. He didn't seem to care. "Delicate."

   "I'm not-"

   "I'm not done, Malcolm." He cut me off curtly, and his eyes narrowed. My stomach squirmed on the inside, but I kept a straight face. "The fact is, you can't stay here in boot camp - you're more trouble than you're worth. You have two options," Ultimatums. I hated ultimatums. "You can either get the Hell off of my base and go back to whatever backwater town you came from," My face was burning with a blush - he'd clearly read my file. He knew who I was, what I was all about. "Or, you can quietly pack your things and move to our recruitment camp for our Rangers, our Snipers."

   "You want me to be your assassin?" My eyes flared wide - I'd known that I was a good shot, but I'd never heard of them pulling someone before boot camp was even finished to enlist in their little club.

   "I want you to do something right for once, Malcolm. You could save lives - more lives than you could possibly imagine. War isn't all frontlines - sometimes, it's doing the things that no one ever hears about."

    He wanted me to be an assassin. I wasn't sure how I felt about all of this. I sat back on my heels, and I watched him search my face for an answer that I wasn't sure about. I knew what I was good at, and whether it was irritating or not, I knew that he was right. I was a better mark than anyone in our training squad, and even back home, I'd been a damn fine shot. I knew that sending me in behind enemy lines was much safer than sending some of the men - they _looked_ military. I looked... what had he called me, delicate?

   Fuck, but I hated that word.

   "Well?" My stomach squirmed, my mouth turning into a scowl. I didn't like it. I didn't like it one damn bit.

 

\---

 

   The Sniper camp was a lot different than our main boot camp. There weren't hundreds of bodies milling around - the unit was small. We were a half dozen people, with one Captain who doubled as our Instructor. From the first day I arrived, I realized I was still a bit of the odd one out... but the thing was, everyone else in the unit seemed to have much of the same problem. Sure, most of them were tall males who looked at me like I was some fragile little thing that could break.

   ... the difference was, they immediately recognized how they could use it. Even though they bitched and moaned over the fact that I hadn't earned my stripes to get into the unit, when I took my first long range shot and blew away their personal records, they shut up.

  Our Captain was beaming, his dark eyes never leaving my impassive face when I pulled my rifle back from my shoulder and leaned back like I'd done nothing special. I'd hit the bullseye from a dozen yards further than the most trained person on our squad.

   For me, it was just another Tuesday.

   I learned that Captain Braydon had been leading this particular 'boot camp' for over five years, though he didn't look like he was marching past twenty-five. I wasn't even nineteen yet, and he was the first man on this earth that made me feel...

   Small.

   It was really fucking weird, but I didn’t hate the feeling as much as I thought I would.

  My whole life, people had tried to make me feel small. They'd wanted me to know that I was a little woman - that I had soft curves that made me look like I'd be the perfect housewife. They didn't care that my curves housed lean muscles, or that my thick thighs were from running and training. They just cared that I was five feet, two inches... and I was a woman with long dark hair and soft features.

   They'd all tried to make me small, and I'd always laughed in their faces and let them know that they could never do anything to make me feel _less_.

   Braydon made me feel small, and it had nothing to do with condescending, or my size. He shifted forward after I'd taken my shot, pulling his own rifle to his hands. "That was a perfect shot, but try centering _yourself_ next time, Malcolm." He smiled at me, and his lips were full, and his eyes were the blue of the sky. "You won't have to hesitate, you won't have to think. Your rifle is an extension of your body - it's not a weapon, Private. It's a part of you." He barely took a moment to aim, and the crack of his gun went off.

   Somehow, I knew before the target was reeled in that his shot was a perfect echo of my own. Bullseye.

   I felt so small, and I felt so _warm_ , and I didn't understand any of it. I just knew that the smile that crossed Braydon’s face when he showed me the target wasn’t because he thought he was better than me. It was because he _knew_ that he could teach me to be better.

  No one had ever looked at me like that before, and I found myself compelled to try harder, to do better... if only to gain that smile again. Braydon was all too willing to give it, and the next few weeks flew by on the wings of me finally accepting the fact that I was part of a unit, part of a small family; even though the others in the squad still looked at me with irritation, they couldn't help but to echo that emotion with respect. I was improving - the mark that I'd thought was easy before became something that I could hit without taking more than a few moments to glance.

   Braydon was always at my side, and it was the sweet warmth of his smile that gave me the confidence to start shooting long range - sniping, and not just the distances that we'd been covering in boot camp. He laid beside me, and he exuded confidence that all that I needed was a spotter who could handle themselves in precarious situations.

   He called out the units, the direction of the wind - he called a target that I could only see through the magnification of my scope, and I trusted his words. I clipped the dummy that I was shooting at. The men in the squad were impressed that I'd hit it at all.

   I was pissed that I hadn't wounded it in a way that would be fatal.

   Braydon was another warm smile and a soft assurance that _next time_ , it would be better. _Next time_ , I would hit exactly where I was aiming on my mark. He seemed so full of hope and promise that I couldn't help but to believe him, even though I resented the fact that I hadn't done it right the first time.

   I don't think that it ever occurred to me that I was training for something that wasn't just combat - war. My mind never correlated the fact that I was training for assassinations. I'd used the word myself with the Commanding Officer of my previous base... but I hadn't really understood.

   I hadn't understood that what I was training for wasn't something done in the midst of combat, on a bloodstained battlefield, where everything was a matter of life and death, and all parties were painted crimson with the guilt of self-defense and death.

   I didn't realize that what I was training for was far more akin to murder than I had wanted to realize.

   That was one lesson that Braydon didn't prepare me for through the weeks and months that we worked together - even after I'd graduated his program, and he'd stepped down from his trainer position to be my spotter. Even then...

   Even then, I hadn't realized what was happening, what I was going to _do_. They'd turned me from a soldier into a Sniper... and they sent me on my first assignment three days out of Braydon and I being shipped out to our post.

   I wasn't sent to a battlefield. I was sent to a plaza via Bird. The ride was silent, and I didn't understand the gravity of seriousness that was on Braydon's face. I didn't understand until we landed, and we were put in civi clothing and given coordinates.

   I didn't understand until I heard the music of a wedding procession - we were miles off, but it echoed through the streets.

   I wish that I'd understood before.

   We came up on the hill, and I could do nothing but stare down into the throng of people below. They weren't even the Chinese - these were our own people... and I didn't understand.

    "Listen, River." A small shiver pulsed down my spine. Braydon had _never_  called me by my first name. It was always Private or Malcolm. He was looking at me now, and the sweet intensity of his blue eyes burned through me - I think that he could see the confusion on my visage. I think that he realized that the military was literally throwing me to the dogs and hoping that I failed.  They'd put all of this time and training into me, but they hadn't even bothered to brief me on the mission. "River... if you can't cut this, if you can't do this, it's okay. We need snipers in the battlefield."

   "What's our mission?" My voice sounded hollow as I spoke, and my eyes flickered down to the podium, where a family stood, cutting a cake, dancing their first dance.

   "Below is one Vincent Walsh. He's one of the lead scientists in the T-series power armor, and he's been feeding information to the enemy. We've received intel that he is going to release coordinates for our bases after his wedding. The mission..." He trailed off, and I could see him searching my face. He was looking for something, and I wasn't sure what it was.

   Weakness, maybe? Braydon still made me feel so small, and a part of me would never forgive him for the fact that he'd let me walk into this blind, even though I knew that it had been orders.

    "We're eliminating the target." My voice was steady, and the word _assassin_  pulsed through my mind again. They were making me do their dirty work - I had to realize, of course, that in doing this I was saving thousands of lives, maybe more. Our bases held all of our artillery, and if the enemy got that information...

   "River..." Braydon trailed off slowly, and then he was moving before I had a chance to realize what he was doing. His mouth was a warm heat against mine, a lightning storm on a summer day - hot, static, and over before you realized what was happening. The taste of his lips lingered even as his words spilled out. "You can do this. I'm here with you." And then he was shifting into place, and I could do nothing but numbly grab my rifle from its case and turn to lay against the hill that we were camped on.

    I didn't know what to say in response to his kiss, because my mind was still whirling from it - from the intensity that his eyes had pierced through my soul. From the fact that I was about to kill a man.

    "As soon as the shot is confirmed, we head for the extraction point. We'll hide in the bunker until nightfall and then extract when we're sure that no one can trace us. Be ready, Private." His voice was back to being professional, but there was a warmth to it that had been hiding beneath the depths all along.

   "Yes, sir." My voice was steady, and I tried to swallow down the heat that I felt - it curled into my belly, and it wasn't any better there. It chased away the edge of fear and nausea that was slowly building from the knowledge of exactly what I was doing... and it was the only thing that kept my fingers steady when I settled against my scope and took aim.

   Braydon spilled out the coordinates and I followed his instructions. I tried to ignore the fact that I was aiming at the head of a groom, dancing his first dance with his bride. I tried to imagine him as just another target dummy. He wouldn't bleed.

 I tried to convince myself that I wasn't ruining the woman's life, forever.

 I knew that no amount of soft lies would change what I was doing, even as Braydon read out the coordinates for me. The scope on my rifle gave me a clear view of what I was doing... it gave me a clear view of the smile on his face as he leaned in to kiss his new-bride.

  I had to remind myself of the fact that he was going to cause chaos. If the enemies knew the location of our bases, they would bomb our power armor. I didn't want to think of our men going out onto the field without that protection.

  "River?" Braydon's voice was soft - a question. He was offering me the chance to back out of this one last time. I took in a deep, shuddering breath.

   "I've got it." And I did. My finger pulled down on the trigger and the crack of the rifle hit my senses - a second later, the man's head exploded. My stomach rolled, I wanted to vomit.

  My voice, instead, came out deadpan. "Shot confirmed." The look on his wife's blood-spattered face, and the sight of her white dress stained crimson was burned into the back of my lids, and it was only Braydon's hand on my arm that pulled me up.

  "Come on, we've got to go. Now." I shuddered, but nodded. It only took me a second to put up my rifle, and another to make sure that my backup guns were secure. Hopefully, there wouldn't be any issues getting to the pick-up zone.

  The only issue that I had was the fact that I couldn't see anything other than the vision of the man's head shattering from the impact of my bullet - the smile still hadn't left his face. He looked so happy. So in love...

   And I'd ended that. Even if he was going to end thousands of lives, he was still a man... and he still had life, and people who loved him.

  And I'd taken that away. I'd snuffed it out with a simple pull of a trigger. That had to mean something. "You did good, Malcolm." Braydon's voice was soft when he spoke, and it took me a second to realize that he'd been murmuring to me for a while. We were already nearly at the bunker, and I'd somehow lost time in my images of guilt and remorse.

  In all of my life, I'd never lost time before... and it was sure as hell an odd thing to experience now. Worse, looking up into Braydon's open face, I knew that he could see the images that were chasing around in the back of my mind - I knew that he could see the guilt and raw emotion there... and I didn't want him to.

  The life _had_ to mean something, but that didn't mean that I wanted him to know how much this had all affected me.

  He didn't need to know that I wasn't sure if I was going to recover at all. He didn't need to know that I was already sure of the fact that this was going to bring nightmares to me tonight. It was only terrible because I knew that we were going to be stuck in the bunker together. At least, I didn't talk in my sleep, as far as I knew.

  "Thank you, sir." My voice came out stronger than I felt, and I held on to that sensation, determined to keep that strength inside of me. They'd obviously sent me here to prove myself, and I was damn well going to demand that they gave me a pat on the back and  congratulations, because I'd done exactly what they'd wanted me to do.

  I'd ended a man's life.

  I had to close my eyes against the sudden wave of nausea that overwhelmed me because the image of his head exploding pooled into my mind again and threatened to tear a scream from my chest. I bit on the inside of my jaw instead and forced myself to smile up at Bradyon with the hope that he couldn't see the emptiness that I was actually feeling.

  From the look he gave me, he could see it more than I wanted. I let the smile fade, and turned to open the bunker door with the key that I had hanging around my neck instead, tucked under my civilian clothing. We'd get changed back into our greens once we were inside of the bunker - from what I'd heard, it was stocked up for a few weeks, on the off chance that something happened and we needed to duck out for a while. It wasn't even visible unless you knew where to look. I slid aside a piece of fake turf to access the door, sliding the key home and pulling the metal hinges upward so that it spilled open for me. I knew that Braydon would push everything back into place before following me down, so I didn't worry about that. I stepped inside instead, letting the sweet coolness of the underground bunker press against my face for a moment. The darkness was my enemy, however, because it gave me nothing to focus on but that image that was burned into my mind - the sight of his head exploding into blood and bone and thicker things... the sight of his wife's terrified and then _horrified_ face.

  A sight that I'd forever imprinted onto her memory as well. I took just a moment, a sweet moment in that darkness and solitude, to let my hands wrap around my stomach. Tears stung at my eyes, and for a moment I thought that I would scream. I thought that I would cry out right there, where no one could see me - where the darkness would eat away the sound, and I could lose myself to the guilt and trembling insanity that was threatening to completely overtake me.

  I thought about it, but Braydon's footsteps were already coming down the stairs, and his fingers found the light switch, so that I could almost feel my dilated pupils spill to pinpricks.

  I shuddered - one long motion that went from the base of my skull to the bottom of my spine.

 And that was it. I took a deep breath, and I had a blank and guarded expression when I turned. "When is rendezvous?" I knew that we were set to extract at some point tonight, but Braydon was the one that they would contact when they were sure that there was an all clear. He looked at me carefully, his brows knit together with worry that I wasn't going to give him a right to have.

  I'd signed up for this. I knew what it had meant. I'd let him train me, and I wasn't going to be a waste of his time. He'd spent months getting me up to snuff for this exact point in my life. I couldn't break under the weight of the stress now.

  Still, whoever had held the idea to send me into this blind deserved a hot place in Hell, and I couldn't believe that Braydon had been the culprit. I suspected my old Base Commander, but I wasn't going to voice the accusation. I wasn't going to give them that satisfaction.

  I was going to pass their little test, and keep my guilt and pain of this moment in my nightmares.

  "It's going to be a few hours. You look wiped, Malcolm." His voice was full of soft concern, his face holding emotions that my stubborn expression dared him to voice. "Why don't you catch a little sleep - I'll take watch."

  I didn't want to sleep, but I needed the excuse to turn away from him. I sat my rifle down, feeling filthy that I was still protective of the gun, and crawled onto the bunk with my boots still on. I'd change into my greens when I woke up, before we got onto the Bird to go home. For now, I just wanted to roll over and hide my expression from Braydon.

  When the tears started to fall from my cheeks, I kept them silent. Either that, or Braydon was wise enough not to make mention of the moment of weakness. When he cleared his throat, I had the sneaking suspicion that it was the latter.


	2. R&R

****Braydon never spoke of the tears that had finally lulled me to sleep that night. I wiped my face clear of them a few hours later when the Bird came in to extract us, and when I went to the General himself to report, my face was clear and my voice full of determination and pride in the fact that I'd done a good job.

  He congratulated me on a job well done - he told me that they'd never sent a rookie sniper to accomplish such a shot. Braydon championed the fact that my hand was steady, that he wasn't sure that even _he_ could have made the shot if our roles were reversed. He praised me, and all that I could do was keep the blush off of my cheeks that the memory of our brief kiss. I kept the warmth from my cheeks, and my answers more respectful than I'd ever been before - part of it was the General's command. His presence was both powerful and soothing at once; I was sarcastic, smarmy... but even I could respect the fact that the man who stood before me actually _cared -_ I could see it in the way that he checked over my expression, actually bothering to ask me how I was holding up.

 "Just fine, sir. Training paid off - it was easy." My voice echoed a hollow tone that I didn't recognize as my own, and I think that perhaps the General realized that as well. I know that Braydon did, because he kept casting me sidelong glances that were full of worry - I could have hit him for it. I'd done my job. I'd done what they asked me, what they'd thrown me into blindly; I didn't need him ruining my perfect cover and composure with his... _caring._

 His expression was serious, but far softer than my Base Commander, and he recommended that I take a week of personal time before returning to my training with Captain Braydon.

  I didn't realize that he was giving me time to recover... and I didn't realize that my training was going to be interrupted so often in order to perform the duties necessary of someone considered to be an up and coming elite sniper in the military.

  When I'd joined, leaving home bright eyed and full of cocky optimism, I'd never dreamed that this was what my life would become.

  "Going home would take the whole week, sir." My voice was still flat when I spoke, and I let a small expression of sorrow slip my features. I didn't want my Ma and Pa to see me, not after what I'd done. Even if I could hide the fear and pain of my actions from everyone else, I knew that I wouldn't be able to hide it from them. They'd been so proud of my decisions, of my ability to make my own way in the world, and to stand up for what I'd believed in. They thought that I was so strong, because I wasn't afraid to be bold.

 What would they think about me, if they knew that I'd ended a man's life? Even though I'd done it to save thousands, maybe even more... even though I'd done it with the best of intentions, what would they think to know that I'd ended a man's life, and left his wife with nothing more than a scarlet stained wedding dress as a memory of what should have been one of the happiest days of her life?

 I didn't want to think about how they'd feel, but the horror of it must have shown on my features, because the General's expression softened.

 "If the Chinese had found our base coordinates, the war would have been lost - they would have taken out our power armor, our artillery - our intelligence bases - they would have taken out the only thing that was standing between our proud country and their assault. You saved more lives than you can imagine. Mine, my families." I wasn't used to a Commanding officer being so kind, so... understanding. When I looked up at him again, for just a moment, I saw a flash of my father's eyes, a flash of the pride that he'd held for me when I said that I was joining the army, my gender be damned. "You did a good thing, Malcolm."

 And for just a moment, under the weight of his gaze, I remembered that I was still a goddamn teenager, for all that I acted like an adult. I didn't let my lower lip quiver, but I was damn close to it.

  "I'm sorry to say it, but we're going to need you to do more jobs, just like that one. We're going to need you - your squad is one of the most important units in the military, though you're praise is never sang, and no one ever knows the weight that you carry. So, take a week - you need it. Find somewhere that you can relax."

  "Sir, if I may?" Braydon's voice was suddenly there, bright and strong and full of a warmth of pride as he looked at me. "My parents own a beach house close by - if you want her to get some R&R, she could always relax there. It's a vacation house, so no one would bother her." The warmth in Braydon's tone made me ache, because I could tell that he cared.

 The thought of being in that house alone, with only my thoughts and guilt made me want to scream, though.  I think that the General saw it, because his brows snapped together. "The idea is a solid one, Captain, but you're going to have to escort her." I jerked my chin up, my pride getting the best of me.

 "Sir, I'll be fine on my own. I'm-"

 "Coming back from a mission that could have your face as a target, if someone made a mark of you. The Captain will escort you, to make sure that we aren't getting your ear as ransom or your head as a message. Am I clear?" Orders - stark orders that made me stand at attention. Braydon followed in suit, and we both snapped out a _yes, sir_ in unison.

  The General looked slowly between us, and gave a curt nod. "Dismissed."

  Maybe I was imagining it, but it seemed like his eyes lingered on me for a second longer, full of concern. My cheeks threatened to burn with a blush of irritation, or maybe disappointment that my facade of bravery was so translucent to the man.

 Whatever it was, Braydon and I exited the office, and I had the realization that I was going to be spending a week alone with him to consider.

 

\--

 

The car ride was silent. We hadn't spoken about our kiss that we'd shared since it had happened. I'd written it off as something that the Captain had done in a misled need to boost my confidence. I didn't want to think about the fact that he'd done it out of actual emotion; I didn't want to admit that there was a part of my chest that _wanted_ him to have done it for that reason. That part was overwhelmed by two very stark statements that my mind threw up like red flags, refusing to let me stride forward.

  First, I had no business wanting to form a relationship with _anyone_ while I was serving. No one was going to take me seriously if I chased after our Captain, and that was a damn good way to get thrown from the military. I didn't think that I could take the shame of it. I didn't think that I could take the weight of it - not after what I'd given up to be here.

  I'd given up a piece of my soul, and I was never going to get that back.

  My second reason was, perhaps, more predominate in my mind than my first. Though the threat of being kicked from the military and made a fool of for chasing after a Captain, my pride wasn't as big a factor as my guilt, which was new to me. I was a proud woman, and I wasn't afraid or ashamed to admit it. But the thought of fixating on a kiss - a kiss that had happened right after a man and woman had kissed, man and wife... I shared my first kiss with Braydon with the first kiss of the bride, whose life I had ruined for ever.

 I couldn't fixate on it. I couldn't focus on it. All that I could do was try to push my feelings aside, because I wasn't allowed to have a soft spot of _fondness_ and _warmth_ and _happiness_ that went hand in hand with the memory of the first time that I'd ever committed murder. Because, when it came down to it, that was what I'd done.

  I'd murdered a man - maybe I'd had a reason, and maybe it was in defense of the entire country. Maybe I had the fucking pardon of the President of the United States of America himself, but it didn't matter. It was still murder.

  "Malcolm?" Braydon's voice was careful when he called out to me, and I realized that the car had stopped - the cut of the engine hadn't pulled me out of my guilt-ridden musings, and I wondered at how long he'd been sitting there, watching the emotions pass along my face. My hands came up, yanking the band from my hair. Black tresses fell in messy waves around my face, and I pulled my expression into a casual countenance.

  "Is this the place?" And then, in a harder tone, "I don't know why the General thought I needed break time - I hope that you'll still drill me while we're here."

  Drill me. Shit. That sounded wrong. I turned my head quickly so that my hanging hair hid the blush that threatened my cheeks. If I wasn't mistaken, Braydon's own face turned scarlet as I darted my eyes away from it.

  "We'll keep up with our exercises, but you were put to orders to get some rest and relaxation, and I don't take orders from the General lightly." Braydon stepped from the car, and I think that he meant to walk around and open my door for me. I hopped from the vehicle before he got a chance - and I do mean hopped. The high tires gave my barely five foot frame a bit of a challenge, but I landed gracefully and had the door closed as he came around. My boots crunched on the gravel, and then turned to soft plods of rubber to wood as I stepped up to the walkway.

  I had to admit, Braydon's little beach retreat was more than just a 'small vacation home'. I hiked my brows at him, looking back with amusement on my face. He grinned, his hand coming behind his head to scruff at the stubble of his cool brown hair.

  "I have family who are high ranking in the military - off working for West Tek, amongst other places. We... get accommodations." Bless him, but he had the grace to look embarrassed. "I don't come here often, honestly." He didn't say it, but I could hear the words in his voice - the words that echoed in my own tone so often. _I like to make my own way._

  That feeling that I wasn't permitting myself to contemplate knocked on the walls around my heart, and I quickly dismissed it.

  "Well, I guess it's nice, if you have a green recruit who needs vacation time." I let my bitterness spill into my voice, and his face turned serious.

  "You're not a recruit, River. And you're not green. You've got more color than most of the Privates." His voice held a serious tone, and I couldn't help but to realize that he was right. My jacket was red. There was no washing that color out, no matter how sarcastic or smarmy I was about the situation.

   Bloodstains couldn't always be removed. I shrugged, turning and heading for the doorway ahead. I heard the sound of Braydon's footfall, heavy on the wooden walkway as he jogged to catch up and get ahead of me. A jingle of keys let me know why, and I had the grace to step aside while he unlocked the doorway.

  "Just try to relax, River." He spoke my name softly, and I felt a trill of emotion creep along my spine. I didn't like to think about the fact that I was only letting myself feel this way because I was _emotional_ . I didn't want to think that I was giving in to that soft emotion of _need_ and _comfort_ , and Braydon radiated it. He was big, and strong, and he made me feel small...

 And for the first time, I wasn't happy about it. I let out a small sigh, and stepped through the door as he opened it. This time, I managed to keep my jaw from dropping at being impressed - the furnishing of the house was just as lavish as the outside, and I had to wonder as to what in the Hell his family did to get such _accommodations_ , and if I'd live long enough through the war to see anything like it myself.

  I wouldn't have accepted - any accommodations that I received would be on the wings of blood, and I wasn't willing to have the reminder. Though the house was lavish, and though it was good to be away from the military base for a time... what I wanted more than anything was the little one story house set by the woods, and the river stream that I'd spent so much time by when I was a little girl.

  I wanted the comforts of home, and I was getting military rewards instead. I stepped forward, letting the pack on my back slide and fall beside a marble top kitchen counter. "Where will I be sleeping?"

  Braydon glanced upstairs - the second floor of the 'Beach house' was accessed by a dark, black banister stairway that swirled upward and disappeared. "You can have whatever room you like. Just go upstairs and pick what suits you..." And then softer, because I think he could sense the waves of confused irritation pouring off of me. "River?"

  I couldn't stand the way that he said my name - so soft. I wasn't really River anymore. I was Sniper Malcolm, Killer. I didn't want to hear my own name.

  "Thanks, Captain." I picked up my bag quickly and stole my way up the staircase before he had time to think of something else that he wanted to ask me. I didn't think that I'd be able to stand it if he did.

  I didn't think that I could take the twisted glimpse of sympathy mixed with some deeper emotion that pooled from the depths of his blue eyes and threatened to reach out and take away the careful icy wall that I'd built up carefully. I hadn't cried since the night that I'd slept in the bunker, and I wasn't about to do it again in front of Braydon.

  I was going to get over this _rest and relaxation_ , and we were going to go back to our camp... and he was going to keep training me to be an assassin.

 

\--

 

A week into the R&R had Braydon telling me that it was a waste of a beach house to not go down to the beach. As much as I wanted to sit in the sun and enjoy the feel of the cool water creeping along my legs, I didn't feel right about it. I shouldn't have been enjoying myself, soaking up the sun, while a bride put her husband in the ground. I could get past the fact that I'd killed a man - I was ready to get back to training... but the thought of enjoying my free time, of acting like nothing had happened?

  That was something that I couldn't do. It had to _mean_ something, and I wasn't going to let myself get so jaded that it didn't. I made myself a promise, while I looked out the windows at the beautiful waves that lapped at the water below. It was a soft promise, and something silent.

  I promised that I would care - every single time I pulled the trigger, I promised that I wouldn't simply let the life that was lost be forgotten. I didn't care if they were evil - I didn't care if they were going to cause the end of the world as we knew it. They were still a life, and they'd be innocent once.

  It had to matter.

  Oddly, deciding that only made me feel _worse_. My sleep had been fitful, but when I went to bed that night, my dreams were crimson soaked and full of accusatory eyes and weeping widows whose faces dripped blood like rain against a window pane. When I woke, it was storming - the sea was rolling angrily, though the light of the moon was obscured by the clouds.

  My cheeks were as wet as my window, and I picked myself up from bed before I could stop myself. I didn't know what i was doing, but I knew that I couldn't stay in that small room, sobbing softly...

  Feeling so broken.

  The tanktop that covered the upper half of my body wasn't enough protection. I took the sheet that I'd thrown off in my fitful sleep and wrapped it around my shoulders. I felt like a kid again, when I used to crawl in between my Ma and Pa during a thunderstorm. The crash of lightening let me know that it was brewing and blowing, and the sound of the waves rocking against the beach roared outside.

  My lip trembled - I could see the Bride's face in the darkness, and this time... she'd asked me a question. This time, she'd asked me _why_. Why, and how many more had to die at my hands.

  I couldn't give her an answer - because I didn't know how many. I only knew that it would be as many as they needed... because America had to be protected; our husbands, our children, our men. My parents.

  Braydon. The General and his family. I had a duty to them, and I couldn't answer to her accusations. I could only promise her that I would care.

  And fuck me, but I cared.

  I meant to go down to the living room, to lay on the couch and watch the storm through the screen door... but the darkness of the Hallway was obscured by a tall shadow, and for just a moment, terror pulsed through my heart. For just a moment, I could see the face of the man that I'd killed.

  And then that shadow was stepping forward, and it wrapped warm arms around me... calloused fingers thumbed away my tears, and Braydon's voice quelled the scream that threatened to rip from my throat.

 "River?" His voice was full of concern, and a question that he seemed almost afraid to ask. I looked up, startled - a flash of lightning spilled through the window, illuminating my face.

  My tear streaked, misery filled face.

  Suddenly, I couldn’t stop myself. I let my head fall against his broad chest, bare from sleeping, and I quietly _sobbed._

  He stood, frozen beneath my sudden assault. If, in that moment, an assassin had wanted to take us out, I don't think that either of us would have been able to react. I heard his heart beat, already thundering loudly from my sudden appearance in the hallway pick up in tempo... and then he wrapped his arms around my frame tight, pulling me to the warmth of his body and the soft, husky scent of his flesh.

  I couldn't stop my tears, though I kept the sobs as silent as I could... and after a moment, his voice called out again, so that I could feel the rumble of it through his entire frame.

  "River, what's wrong?"

_I killed a man. I killed a man, and I can't get his face out of my mind. Even in my dreams._

  "I don't like thunderstorms." It was a thick lie, and I think that he knew it as soon as it came out of my mouth. I felt his body, still tense, but his lips were a soft press of heat against the top of my head.

  "Do you want to sleep in my room tonight?" His voice was careful, and I knew that he had ever right for it to be. It was a dangerous offer, and the flaring heat of our prior kiss suddenly came again into my mind. "I'll make sure that nothing gets you." There was a double meaning to his words, and I knew it. I should have said no.

  I wanted to say no - I didn't need to do this. I didn't need to let myself fall into his arms. But... he was so warm, and he felt so _safe._

  "Please?" My voice was so small when I answered, and he didn't make me ask twice. I felt a sudden motion - he picked me up in a fluid movement that suddenly had me held bridal style against his chest. I wanted to argue - I wanted to tell him to put me down... I wanted to say a lot of things that I didn't seem to have the strength to manage... because I just let myself lean against his chest, my tears soaking a line down the tanned flesh of his chest. Even in the darkness, I could see a light pepper of white scars along his collarbone.

 I was moving again, a rustle of sheets  and covers... and then he tucked me safely into the bed that was still warm from his laying there. He was careful when he laid beside me, keeping a layer of the sheet between us so that our bodies didn't actually touch.

  I thought about telling him then that I was okay - that I didn't need this attention, but he was pulling me close, tucking me against the crook of his neck... and I found myself calmed by the scent rolling off of his skin.

My body was shivering, and it took Braydon's hands stroking soft along my back for me to realize it. "Malcolm," he said my last name softly, "It's okay to feel this way. The longer you run from it, the worse it's going to get." He shifted, tilting my face back so that I was suddenly exposed, all tears and red eyes. "Talk to me."

  "Braydon, I-" I didn't know how. I didn't know how to tell him what I was feeling; I was actually afraid to voice it, afraid to let him know how much it was affecting me. For as much as I was curled in bed beside him, he was still my commanding officer, my Captain. "I'm fit for duty." The words were a dull echo of my thoughts, and I tried to turn my gaze from him, but he kept my face firmly held between his hands.

  "I don't doubt that, River. But you also have enough heart to _care_ about what happened. It's okay - you _should_ ." And then softer, _"_ I did for my first kill."

  My eyes flared wide - of course, I knew that Braydon had killed people before. He wouldn't be the Captain of the unit if he hadn't. Still, I'd never stopped to wonder how he'd handled it, whenever he was young and green and thrown into the same circumstances as myself. "How did you handle it?" My voice was a whisper, as though I was afraid, somehow, the General himself would hear me asking for advice.

  "I realized that it had to be done, that I was saving lives. And..." He shrugged, his smile coming wry, "I let my nightmares beat me up until I finally got used to killing. So," His thumb stroked a soft line against my jaw, and I felt it as though he'd run his hand down the front of my chest. "Let's see if we can skip that latter part for you, hm? We can't have you exhausted from nightmares." He leaned in, until his forehead was pressed gently against mine. "You're human, River. You're going to feel guilt, you're going to see their faces. Just know that you're seeing theirs, instead of thousands of soldiers, women, children. We trade away pieces of our soul to save our country," it was such a grim outlook, but truth. I'd felt that truth the moment I'd pulled the trigger, and hearing him say it made my eyes sting again with tears.

  "How do you stand it?"

  "I kept it to myself - but you don't have to." Braydon's voice was heat, warmth, and he stroked through the dark tresses of my hair. "I'm here, River. Just... let me in."

  I didn't mean to, I honestly didn't... but for some reason, I lifted my head, pressing my lips forward to catch against the sweet promise that fell from his mouth, to taste it and seal it with a kiss. I didn't know how to let him in any other way.

   He was soft heat and stillness beneath my kiss, and for a moment, I wondered if he was going to push me back. His arms fell away from my face, and my body tensed for rejection; he was my commanding officer. I _knew better than this_ . But then, I felt the strong squeeze of his muscles around my waist, and he pulled me up and taut against him, so that our bodies were one hot line pressed against each other. Something akin to a moan poured from his mouth, spilling into mine in a sonnet of _desire_.  

  For a moment, there was just the press of our bodies against one another. When Braydon's hands came down to my hips, rolling me atop his body, a surge of warmth tore from my pelvis and up through my mouth in the form of a wild whimper. Blunt nails dug into my flesh, skimming and holding tight as though Braydon had found an anchor in the middle of a rippling sea. The feel of it made me whimper again, louder this time, more desperate for that touch.

   As though that sounds was some sort of signal, Braydon broke our kiss. His breath came in a soft, panting gasp, and his blue eyes were hot with passion. The words that spilled from him, in relation to his appearance confused me.

   "River, we can't do this. _I_ can't do this."

   I actually didn't understand him for a moment. I laid atop him, and the heat of his frame was pouring into me - there was a particular hardness pressed against my lower body that to me he _could_ do this. Dark brows knit together, and I stared at him in silent confusion.

   "We..." His voice was fevered, hot and full of _pain_ , and he leaned up to press another kiss against my mouth. I didn't think I imagined the tremble there. After a moment, he slid me carefully from his body.

  "What's wrong?" _With me_ , my voice finished the sentence in my head - hurt was lancing through me. Braydon's touch, heated and perfect, was scalding away the pain that I felt, or at least making me forget, for the moment, why I was feeling it at all. Softer then, and I knew that insecurity was thick in my voice. "Why?"

  He instantly pulled me closer, his lips finding my forehead in a sweet kiss. "I won't have our first time come about because you're vulnerable and hurting." His voice was fraught with desire, opposing the sincerity and chivalry in his words. "I _want_ you, River. I've wanted you since we first met. But..." He shook his head and drew me closer, his arms so tight that I could feel the trembling in his muscles. "I won't take advantage of you like this."

   I wanted to tell him that he _wasn't_ , and that I wanted this just as much as he did... but a part of me wasn't so sure. Would I have done this, had I not been feeling so vulnerable? Would I have crawled into bed with him at all? I frowned, but my arms came up to wrap around him. One thing that I knew was him stopping, even though I could feel each vibrating muscle in his body trying to convince him to do the opposite... it _meant_ something.

   It meant something for _us_.

   "You're a terrible Captain." I let the words spill out playfully, and I was relieved with the sound of his soft chuckle. Before he could come back with a quippy response, a question ached out from my chest. "Can I still stay in here?" The thought of going back to my room now, of losing his warmth and being held instead by the nightmares... I couldn't take it.

   "You can stay with me as long as you like," And there was a double meaning to his words - I could taste it in the air. Braydon was letting me heal, but he wasn't letting me go.

   I shifted, until there was no space between our bodies and my head was thick with the scent of him. "You don't know what you're getting yourself into." I murmured the words, and the rumble that came from his chest was a near purr of pleasure. My eyes were drifting closed, the comfort of his arms lulling me into security.

    "I can't wait to find out." Soft, a whisper - his lips against my head again... and then I sank into a blissfully dreamless sleep.


	3. War Never Changes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> River can only run from her emotions and demons for so long before they catch up to her.

  I'd never been in a relationship that wasn't purely physical before - but Braydon seemed very self assured about the fact that we wouldn't and couldn't allow ourselves to get swept up in the passion of romance while we were working on winning a war. There was something almost liberating about that fact - I knew that Braydon wanted me, and not for my petite frame, or my pretty face. He wanted me as I was, all broken bits and fierce strength… and it felt like we were always going to be together. We were never assigned to a unit, though the snipers in our team came and went, being sent out to the larger squads. It seemed that only Braydon and myself stayed stationary - I was promoted to Lieutenant within six months, and we trained the new snipers together... and no one questioned when we were sent on solo missions.

  My count was up to twenty-five. Twenty-five assassinations. Twenty-five times that I'd pulled the trigger... and I could still remember each and every face in the moments before their death. They were usually smiling, though some were grey with worry over the war. Some even looked suspicious, as though they were expecting the bullet that they couldn't hide from. Braydon called out their position, and then we made hasty retreats to our extraction points.

  Sometimes, he'd press a gentle kiss to my lips, all heat and warmth. Mostly, he just held me on the ride home, letting me suffer through my emotions without questioning my reaction. Our first kiss had been all heat and warmth, sexual attraction on the vestiges of some great discovery of the other’s soul. The kisses after were solid, and warm, and an anchor to reality - to the knowledge that we were still human, even in the most inhumane of situations.  

  I loved him.

  I knew it after three months of our odd relationship - I knew it by the fact that just spending time with him was more than enough. It wasn't about sex, or physical attraction - though God knew that was there, in palpable waves that had me aching to crawl into his cot some nights. But I didn’t, because our relationship was more than that - it was about _Braydon_ , and the man that he was... and the fact that he was willing to wait until this godawful war was over to be with me. It was the way that he held my hand when he knew that no one was looking, and the way that his blue eyes shifted into a incandescent halo every time he caught my own hazel gaze.

  It was everything that he was. He was kind when he didn't have to be, and a strong leader for the men and women who came through our camp - more than that, he was willing to lend them that strength to help them better themselves. He never let what we did change _who he was_. It was more than his military strength and prowess though; it was his passion for reading, for writing - for creativity and warmth. I discovered a notebook beneath his cot at the Sniper Camp one night, when our last recruit had been sent out and we were there alone. It had a dozen little short stories, all scrawled out in his messy handwriting. It had a poem, about an endless River that drifted to the sea. He was all compassion, and love, and a vivaciousness for life that startled me every time he let it shine through - even in the grips of war, and up to our ears in death-count, he still managed a secret smile for me.

  I loved Braydon, and I knew that I'd never really had any other option... because he just _was._

   I think it was my emotions for him that caused me to listen to the General, when he offered to move our positions. Apparently, the snipers that we were training were some of the best that had come out of the Military for the last few years - capable enough that he felt Braydon and I both could find different positions... positions that would be much more what I'd expected when I'd first joined the military. I'd always known that I might have to kill someone - I'd expected it to be on the Alaskan front, on the battlefield.

  Not during a wedding. Not during the middle of the night when they slept, or when they were out with their parents on a yacht.

  I'd expected war - not murder; the two held a exact distinction in my mind.

  I wasn't sure how Braydon would feel about the offer; the General had pulled me aside after we'd reported, and told me that it was something that I could think about. A part of me wondered if he could see the death-weary look in my gaze. Whatever it was, the offer was there, but I could tell that he was going to let me make my own decision. The fact that the General had enough respect for me to allow me that adjudicature spoke volumes to my pride. The fact that I was almost afraid of what it would mean for Braydon and myself... that was another matter altogether.

  If we served our time out on the battlefield, if he was no longer my superior officer...

  It could mean volumes for us. We could be _together_. But... did I really want any of my trainees to have to go through what I went through now? Though I wasn't used to it, I'd started to numb myself to it - to learn how to handle the guilt. Would they be so good at it?

  It was a lot to think about - and more than I was willing to process at the moment. Instead, I let myself worry about our assignment; our orders had been stressed as very urgent - very important. Apparently, the man that we were being sent to kill was the right hand man to the head of the nuclear department for the enemy facilities. Though taking him out wouldn't stop the enemy from still developing their technology, it might buy us a few months before they furthered their advancements.

  In military speak, a few months meant a hell of a lot.

  "Are you ready for this?" Braydon's voice was soft, commiserative to the situation at hand. We were dressed to the greens; our drop location had been in the country, and our extraction point was a shack in the woods, whose walls had been fortified and bordered up a few weeks ago when we'd been notified that Dr. Horto was going to visit his family home for the week. Metal plating would keep any thermal sensors from noting where we were - and as far as our intel had gathered, no one knew the shack existed.

  Braydon and I would hopefully be extracted before the night was over, but this was a high profile execution - security measures were in high effect.

  There was something about the entire situation that caused my stomach to twist - the fact that it was so high-profile, it seemed to indicate that they were almost expecting something to go wrong. I knew that what we did ran a high risk - I knew that Braydon and I put our lives on the line each time we came out for one of these calls. But... maybe, maybe soon we wouldn't have to?

  Perhaps the problem was the fact that we were closer than usual - our other shots had us nearly a mile out. The man that we were taking down was surrounded by a wall... and we had to climb that wall before we could even manage to take a shot at all. We were going to be close enough that I'd hear the sound of the screams when the people around Horto realized that he wasn't breathing anymore.I frowned at the thought of it; those screams would haunt me, and I knew it.

  Those screams were one more reason why the General's offer continued to echo inside of my head, like a sweet lulling promise of what I could have, if I wanted.

  But could I really leave this task to anyone else?

  It was something to think about later - neither Braydon nor myself could afford for my attention to be diverted at the moment. We were scaling the wall, coming to the only broken point in it... and already I could see why we were on high alert. Though the man was here for a family visit, there were guards patrolling the perimeter. Braydon caught my eye, and carefully motioned to our left. My eyes shifted at his insistence, and I met sights with my target.

  He was holding a six year old boy in his arms, and the child was smiling in pure joy and delight - probably because he hadn't seen his father in months. My heart clenched tight, even as I pulled my rifle out and set it steady against the brick so I could line up my shot. In turn, Braydon silently set about pulling out the equipment that he used to factor the wind, the distance, drag - the equipment that would make my bullet precise.

 The day was still, though - barely a breeze.

 I settled myself, propped against the wall. My gun was steady, and it only took me a second to line up my sights. The man wasn't moving as he held his son - and around him, I could see his wife, holding the hands of a little girl. They were singing...

  My heart clenched hard again, even as I shifted the sights to line up with the Horto's head.

  Braydon leaned close enough to me that his words were more a press of breath against my ear than actual verbalization. He read the coordinates, and I adjusted a few inches for the difference. I didn't hesitate when I squeezed down on the trigger - I didn't pull my scope away fast enough to miss the look of pure horror on the little boys face as his father's head shattered.

 I didn't pull my scope away fast enough to miss it as the small child crumbled over his father's body and started to sob.

  A sob echoed in my head, and it took me a moment to realize that it was my own, not the child's. Braydon grabbed my arm - that light touch was enough to make my body mechanically move. We packed our gear and took off at a run, slipping into the cover of the nearby woods just as the sound of shouts started to spill up through the back yard.

  I was hoping that I only imagined the high pitched wail of the boy, following me into the cover of the trees.

 

\--

 

 We took precautions to make sure that we left no tracks as we went deep into the woods. The small cabin looked innocuous at a glance, but I knew that there was thermal plating and a bunker beneath, on the off chance that we'd been followed. After trekking for an hour, it didn't seem that the shouting had followed us. Still, I could hear the small wail of the boy in my mind, and I could see the pain on his face as he bent over his father's dead body.

  I could feel the sharp constriction in my chest that was my mind wrapping around how I would feel, were it my father's body when I was that young. By the time that we were secure in the cabin, locking the door behind us with the steel bar that had been installed, I was shaking.

  My mind was swirling with thoughts - thoughts of a life that wasn't war... of what I wanted, and the fact that we would never be able to have that until the threat of the enemy was completely erased.

   _We_. Because I wanted it with Braydon.

  As long as the war raged on, there was never going to be any peace - if I bowed out of my position, it would be our children who were crying over the bodies of their dead family, our children whose wails haunted my mind.

  "River?" Braydon might have said my name more than once, but I'd been so deep in my thoughts that I hadn't heard.

  "There's no real way to win this, is there?" My thoughts spilled from my mind before I could stop them, and he looked at me curiously, his blue eyes full of depths that I so often lost myself to.

  "What do you mean?" Even as he spoke, and even though I could _tell_ that he wanted to hold me, he was securing the perimeter. He checked the windows, the door, the food and water supplies... and for a moment, I watched him mutely. After a moment, I walked to the bed and sat down, laying my rifle carefully beside the bed frame. I pulled the pistols on my hips and sat them on the table, and the small rifle that I had along my spine. We were armed to the teeth, and ready for anything. I don't think any amount of weaponry could prepare Braydon for the guilt that was washing through me, however.

  "It's always going to be someone's Father, someone's child who has to mourn. Whether it's us or them... for the innocent people, there's no way to really win, is there?" My voice was thick with remorse, as though each kill had been another rung on a ladder, and it had finally managed to extend its reach from my throat.

  "But..." Braydon's mouth twisted, and I could tell that he was fighting off a frown. He took a few more moments to make sure that everything was secure, and then came to stand in front of the bed frame. "It's us or them, River. We're saving thousands of people."

  I knew that - of course I knew that. But I also knew that the boy whose wails had chased us into the woods had never done a damn thing to deserve the pain that he felt. He'd grow up with hatred in his heart - he'd grow up to be a soldier. War bred hatred, and hatred bred war.

  It was a never ending cycle.

  "You can't keep doing this to yourself." I felt the weight of his body as he sat on the bed frame beside me, but I didn't look up. My hands were pale, and my fingers were shaking... but I could almost swear that there were traces of crimson in the lines of my palm - red that I could never get out. "River, look at me."

  I turned my gaze up, and I knew before I did it that there were tears in my eyes. I'd been trying to hide this guilt from him since that first night - trying to be strong, like I didn't need someone to lean on. But that child's face wouldn't leave my mind. It wasn't like the Bride from my first kill... this was something altogether different - that kid knew _nothing_ of what his Father was doing. He didn't know what war was, or why we'd even started it to begin with. His face had been full of innocence, and the bullet that I'd sent into his Father's chest had served a dual purpose. I'd killed that kid's innocence in the same way that I'd killed his father, and there was nothing that I could do about it.

  "I don't know if I can keep doing this, Braydon." My voice was a tremble when I spoke, and I watched his blue gaze slip carefully into a guarded expression. Of course, he had no idea what I was talking about - this could have meant a multitude of things. "The General offered to switch me - to switch _us_ to different positions." His brows furrowed at that - I knew that he'd been training his whole life for what he was doing now. It wasn't the same circumstances as myself - he had his Father's sniper rifle, with their family emblem engraved on the hilt. it was a matter of pride. Of what he felt was destiny...

   And I was talking about leaving it all behind. _Fuck_ , but of course he wouldn't want to. I wasn't worth that much.

  "Would that make you happy? The same guarded expression that was in his eyes now spilled into his voice, and I had to drop my gaze again. Tears fell wet against my palms, upturned as though I was searching for some sign of my innocence still retained in all of this.

  "I don't know." The truth. I could at least give him the truth. I'd somehow managed to peel away the layers of sarcasm and wit that I kept up like a defensive wall, and let him see the person that I really was. "We're good at what we do, Braydon. Some of the best." My hands turned over, clenching into fists on my lap, "But aren't you tired of it? Of the death, and the senseless killing - of the innocent people that we leave in the wake of our missions? I just..." I let myself lean over, my head coming to rest on his shoulder. "I'm so tired of being a monster - of people someone that they probably whisper about in terror and fear. I signed up for the war - I didn't sign up to be an assassin... and I-"

  I cut myself off sharply. I didn't want to finish the sentence. I didn't want to break the careful line that we'd been walking the entire time that we'd been pursuing our relationship, or whatever it was.

  "And you what?" Careful - still so careful.

  "I want to _be_ with you." My words were a low, slow burn in my chest. I felt like a goddamn bitch for even saying it. We'd been keeping it at the back of our minds, like a sweet promise of reward for when the war was over. I hadn't brought it up - he hadn't mentioned it. When his body began to react from holding me against him, we'd always parted and given it time to cool down - when our kisses had become to fevered, we'd pulled back with gasping breath... and maybe, just maybe, I wasn't strong enough to hold out anymore.

  Maybe I needed the sweet taste of that passion to contend with the guilt that was cloyingly thick on the back of my tongue.

  "River, I don't know if we-"

  "I know that we shouldn't, Braydon. And I know that we've been so careful. But..." I frowned, my lips twisting. This wasn't how I imagined my confession; but he couldn't say that I was shell shocked from my first murder, not anymore. "I love you." Even easing the words out made my chest ache. "I love you, and I _want_ to..." I wanted to what? To fuck him? To stay strong enough to keep doing what I was good at? To make him proud?

  "What do you want?" I could feel the rumble in his words, and his body was tense as I stayed laying against his shoulder. My hands came up, circling the strength of his arm, fingers finding his straining muscles.

  "I want _you_ , Braydon. And I want to keep doing what we do best - but..." My voice sounded so broken, and so full of heat all at once. "I'm so tired of death, and this dance that we're doing. I need something to even it out. I..."

  I didn't even know what I was asking for - and whatever it was, I was being too needy in wanting it. But the thought of being able to wash away the guilt and pain that I felt in his arms, in his embrace...

  The thought of being able to get the taste of war and hatred off of the back of my tongue with the saccharine flavor of his love was the remedy to a malady that I was desperately trying to cure.

    His hands were warm on my jawline, and his mouth chased at the edge of my jaw before he pressed the petal of our lips together. His tongue licked a hot line against my own, and it caused a low sound that was half-sob, half-moan to pour from my chest. My arms spilled around him just as he pulled me against his chest, so that I was straddling his frame.

  Braydon pulled back from the kiss with a gasp, and I wanted to scream at him for stopping. I wasn't sure what I wanted anymore, but if anything in my world was solid, it was Braydon. Maybe we couldn't do this forever, but this once... just this once... a sweet memory to tide me over until the war was won? I wanted it.

  "We'll look into transfer if you want, River. But we're making a difference here, with what we're doing. You and I-" His lips curved into a smile at the mention of us, "We're the best team the Army's ever had. The General must care about you more than he's letting on if he offered you a transfer." Thoughts seemed to be pulsing through his gaze, and a decision clicked in those blue hues. "I'd think he wants you to be happy, River." And then softer, husky, "I think I can make you happy."

  "You do." The words arched from my mouth before I could stop myself, and his hands spilled up along the back of my jacket, fingers skimming bare flesh and scorching me with their calloused heat.

  Blunt nails trailed down my back, and it brought a wild whimper from my chest that was met with the hardness of him beneath his trousers. He pulled me closer, and his breath was hot in my ear when he spoke to me. "I love you, too, River Wren Malcolm. I've loved you since I laid eyes on you - all tough and small, fierce and fragile in one package." He swiped a hot line along the shell of my ear, and the pressed a kiss to my temple. His words rocked through me, making me shiver against his chest.

  He loved me.

   _He loved me._

  "Braydon, I-" But he caught my lips again, his kiss silencing me, and his words a whisper against my mouth.

  "Let me show you."

  And I was more than happy, as he pulled us both down to the mattress, to oblige.

 

\--

 

 I was curled against Braydon's chest, with the smell of our lovemaking and his sweet scent thick in the air when our radio went off.

  "Extraction prepared - hostiles spotted near by. Exit with care. Need to get you two out of there before they approach."

  We were both jerked from our careful afterglow; we'd been here for a few hours, and we'd just managed to calm down. Braydon was instantly out of the sheets, pulling his jacket on, throwing my pants at me. He paused just long enough to let his full lips turn into a grin, and to mouth the words _I love you_ , and then he was working to pack us up as quickly as possible. I pushed from the bed, pulling my pants on so that I could cram my boots on as quickly as possible. Even through the carefully plated walls, I could hear the Bird's approach. If they thought that hostiles were approaching, I wanted to get out of here as quickly as we could.

  I had a lot to think about - but it was hard to concentrate when my body ached in all the right ways from Braydon's careful attentions, and for the first time in a long time... I wasn't haunted by what had happened earlier. I was basking gently in the afterglow of our confession, of our gentle love making.

  I didn't regret what we'd done, and from the way that Braydon's blue eyes glistened, it seemed like he didn't, either.

  "C'mon, let's go." I pushed to the door, pulling myself into a more alert position - we would have time to discuss what this meant for us after we got home. For now, we needed to get out of here. "Oh, shit." I turned, and Braydon was holding my rifle case.

  "It's almost like someone scrambled your brains." I chuckled, holding my hands out for the gun as he teased me. He handed me the gun, twirling my body around and planting a kiss on my forehead as he did so, so that he could push out of the door ahead of me.

  I was still smiling at him when his brows twitched together - I was looking up at his face, his rugged jawline, his blue eyes, his full lips... when they were suddenly painted crimson.

  I was looking up at Braydon when he fell down against me... and when I noticed a sharp, stinging pain that numbed my left arm from shoulder to fingertip - we fell to the ground together.

  "Braydon?" My voice came out, and I didn't recognize the tone. The numbness in my shoulder was blossoming into pain, and I was just now recognizing the sound of the gunshot that had gone off. Braydon's blue eyes were staring unblinking at me, his mouth twisted into a frown.

  He didn't answer me.

  "Braydon!" I shouted his name, trying to shake him - his six foot plus frame effectively trapped me beneath him, and I could feel the hot spill of blood pouring and pulsing from his chest - from his chest, to my shoulder.

   Still, Braydon didn't answer me.

   "Braydon, get up." My nails dug into his flesh, trying to push him off of me. My rifle was trapped between our bodies, and I didn't have the mobility in my arm to pull it out. "Braydon, we need to _go_." My voice was soft, insistent, but blood was dripping from unresponsive lips, and his eyes still didn't blink.

   ~~_His body was soft and sweet when he moved above me, the careful ministration of his hips delivering long, slow strokes that drew moans from my chest and made me cry out._ ~~

    He didn't answer when I called his name. His eyes just stared.

   ~~ _I love you, River... so much." And he kissed me hot and sweet, chasing his lips along my skin to taste the sweat from his teasing as it beaded on my flesh. His lips found the curve of my own, and his hips continued to work, long hot lines, so that the liquid heat of pleasure began to build in my belly._ ~~

  "Brayd... Braydon. Please? Braydon!" But still, he didn't answer.

   _ ~~Braydon, please!~~ _ ~~" _And the darling man, he didn't tease. His fingers slipped between our bodies, and he worked at the bud of my pleasure as the tempo of his hips picked up, as he let out a long, low moan and his blue eyes closed... and then he was spilling heat inside of me, and--_ ~~

  I could feel his blood pouring from the wound on his chest, though the flow was stilling, because his heart wasn't pumping that hot liquid anymore - the wound that would have been lower, had I went out the door first. My own pain was playing second fiddle to the agony ripping through my chest, because my Captain, my _lover_ laid unblinking atop me, and I was trapped beneath the weight of his frame. I could hear footsteps approaching, but I couldn't tear my eyes from his face, from his lips that were almost still smiling...

  From his lips that would never smile again.

  "Braydon... don't..." I choked out the words, but my world was coming in a stream of colors that focused down to flashing lights. The sound of a gun cocking.

  The sound of a Vertibird. ~~_Braydon wasn’t breathing._ ~~

  A minigun.  ~~ _He was so still above me._~~

  Shouting, screaming. ~~_Braydon wasn’t making a noise._ ~~

  My name. ~~_Braydon was…_ ~~

  But it wasn't Braydon who said it - Braydon would never say my name again... because Braydon was...

  My name again, closer this time. But I didn't care. I didn't care anymore... "Braydon... wait for me, please?" I tried to pull him closer, but I couldn't... my body was liquid and useless... and the stream of color focused down to a flash of white, and then black eating away at the edges of everything, and then there was nothing but darkness and the thought that _this was how the boy felt, the bride felt…_

~~**_Braydon was dead._ ** ~~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the... abrupt sadness. There should be 1 more chapter after this, before the bombs drop? Then we're going to get to the actually Fallout. Thank you to the people who have stuck with me through this rather elaborate back story. I honestly didn't mean for it to be so long, but River decided that she had to speak.


	4. Broken Bird

For a while, things were just a stream of pictures in my mind - sound and images coalescing into a distorted version of reality that I wasn't sure existed. There was pain, the sound of a Vertibird. There was the sweet sensation of Braydon's lips pressing softly against my cheek while he told me he loved me.

  The General's voice was full of aching sorrow when he spoke, words about _died instantly_ and _straight through the heart._ Words like _still looking for her_ and _she needs time to recover, somewhere safe._

  But those words meant nothing to me, because the soft lull of Braydon's voice pulled me back into the darkness, promising me sweet relief if I'd just come into his arms.

  All that I wanted was to rest in the circle of his arms, because I knew that rousing to listen to the General would bring back painful memories that I didn't want to face.

  I could still smell his blood, thick like a liquid shirt across my chest. Everything that was his essence, spilled out and spread across my body.

  I could still smell the intoxicating scent of our lovemaking, riding through the air like some high that could end the war if we could just bottle and sell it.

  I didn't want to wake up.

  I heard doctors speaking words about _torn veins_ and _blood loss_ . But the voices were confused, because the damage was repaired, and I still wasn't waking. The General's voice wasn't confused, but it was soft when he whispered that _he wouldn't want you to follow him just yet_ , and that I needed to _wake up._

 **** **_~~Wake up, River.~~  _ **

  I didn't understand why Braydon was telling me to wake up.

 _We'll put her in a safe house, I have a place in mind, they'll not think to look there - she'll wake up, or she won't._ And the General sounded so sad at the prospect of the latter, but it was Braydon's aching tone that tore at my chest.

**~~Please, River. Please, wake up.~~ **

 

-

 

  "Ptichka, you've rested long enough. Up with you, now." I didn't recognize the voice. It was... Russian, and nothing familiar to me, and it tore at the begging tone of Braydon's words, though it was asking me for the same thing. What was worse, my body was sore - it ached from shoulder to fingertips.

  The pain in my chest hurt more than anything else, and I knew that it wasn't actually a physical thing - it wasn't something that time could heal. This wasn't anything like the movies, or books. There was no foggy haze in my mind, making me forget what had happened to get me here.

  I could see Braydon's wide, unseeing eyes with sparkling clarity. I knew that the voice that I'd been hearing in my mind wasn't real, because Braydon was dead.

  He'd told me he loved me, and then he'd died. If I'd walked out the door first, it would have been me, instead.

  Braydon was dead, and I could never get him back. The knowledge woke me with a start, and I jerked upward, fingers scrambling for purchase. My eyes flared wide, but I wasn't surrounded by the white of a hospital. I was on soft sheets, in a room painted a cool blue, and the blue eyes that stared back at me weren't that of a doctor.

  "Calm now, or you will tear stitches." I jerked up, ignoring what he said. My eyes searched around - I didn't see a damn gun in sight.

  "Where in the fuck am I?" My words were spat out furiously, but I could hear the edges of pain on my tone. Pain that had nothing to do with the way that my arm burned, the wound that I could feel tearing at my shoulder. No, it was pain in the fact that his smooth, calming voice had woken me, when all that I wanted to do was _sleep_. I wanted to stay with Braydon, and his voice was only there now when I slept.

  "You are at General King's house. Apparently you make many enemies, ptichka. You rest here until you have recovered, and the threats are eliminated." I frowned - I had no reason to believe a word that came out of the man's mouth, except for the fact that there were pictures of the General and a handsome young man that _had_ to be his son hanging on the wall, and the man standing in front of me was posed with them in some of those photos. That, and I could remember the General's voice in my mind, saying that he had a safe house in mind.

_~~That, and I could remember Braydon's body atop my own, unmoving, while we both bled out.~~ _

  "I..." Suddenly, talking was painful. I couldn't hide the expression from my visage, and the man in front of me frowned in pity. "I need to get back to work." I finally got the words out. I couldn't stay here - I needed to... to do something.

  To get revenge? To make a difference.

  To see Braydon again - my heart constricted suddenly. "How long have I been out?" Was he already... had they already...

  "A week and three days. Now, lay back." His hand pressed on my uninjured shoulder, and I let out a small growl at the way he pushed me easily back onto the bed as though I weighed nothing. Still, I followed the motion of his hand, my body feeling far too weak to fight him, like a helpless kitten. "You must eat something, recover your strength. There is no work for a wounded ptichka. You will go back when I say."

  What was he, some kind of doctor? The fact that there was some odd Russian man taking care of me was problematic enough. The fact that I oddly wanted to just fall into the comfort that he seemed to offer was odder still.

  "I'm not hungry." Sullen - stubborn. I would have crossed my arms if I could have. Underneath it all was a current of agonizing loss, because if it had been a week, Braydon was already gone. I couldn't even tell him goodbye.

"Hungry or not, you must eat." He pushed himself up from the bed and offered me a kind smile that made my chest tight and a lump form in my throat - I didn't need him to see how broken I was. "You stay. I will bring you food." And then he was out the door, and I was left in the room by myself.

  As soon as the sound of his footsteps retreating left earshot, I felt the sob that had been threatening me well up and out of my throat. The tears that streaked down my cheeks were silent, but they were there, and they were real, and it felt like I was dying on the inside. Braydon was gone, and it had been a week. I couldn't even go to his funeral. I couldn't even tell him that I was sorry, that I'd gotten him killed.

 My body jerked violently at the thought, the memory rocking over me again like something visceral and tangible - I lived the moment over again in such bright, real colors that I could have sworn I felt the bullet enter my shoulder. I bit down on the inside of my cheek hard enough to taste crimson, just quell the scream that threatened to crawl from my chest. The scream that was Braydon's name.

  It hadn't saved him them - it wouldn't bring him back now, and the Russian was just out of earshot. I couldn't let him see me this broken. I _had_ to get back to work, now more than ever.

 A low groan of pain poured out of my chest when I pushed myself up from the bed - my shoulder was already healing, and I had to be thankful for the technology that the military possessed. The physical injury wouldn't keep me down for long, but I had a feeling that the Russian was more worried with my emotions than my physical capabilities.

  It took me a second to struggle to my feet, and when I did, I swayed instantly. Lightheadedness nearly took me to my knees, and my chest ached with another wash of memory - what had happened, playing in perfect color before my eyes.

  "Oh, God. Braydon..." My hands clenched, wrapping around my torso in a small hug. It took me just a moment to find a jacket in the room, though I wasn't sure whose it was. It didn't matter - I slung it over my shoulders, to cover up the tank top and shorts that I wore. I buttoned it up over the wound that was an angry red line of stitches, already preparing to scar. Stimpaks would make it fade before another week was up, and my mobility was already returning... but that physical evidence of the bullet... the bullet that Braydon and I had shared...

  "Fuck. **Fuck** !" I whimpered the curse out, my fists clenching so tight that my nails cut into my palms. I wanted to hit something. I wanted to scream, to cry. To do _anything_ other than put on a brave face and force myself to march out of the bedroom.

  Moving hurt, and the dizziness that I felt from an apparent lack of eating made it hard to focus. The house was nice, from what I could tell. There were more pictures on the wall of a young, blue-eyed boy, slowly progressing into a man as I shifted along the stretch of carpet. As I moved, the mouthwatering scent of food flooded my senses and made my gut do a rolling turn.

 I _was_ hungry, but the thought of food made me want to vomit up the nonexistent contents of my stomach. I'd never felt misery like this before, never felt so much pain... and it was only made worse by the fact that I forced my face to stay straight, even though I wanted to crumble there in the hallway. Instead, I forced myself towards the scent of cooking, and the soft lull of the Russian's voice as he murmured to himself. I rounded the corner to see him working over a skillet, though I hadn't even taken a step into the kitchen when he spoke without turning.

 "The General spoke true when he called you stubborn. This is kitchen, not bed." He didn't have to turn for me to visualize the disapproval on his features. I opened my mouth to speak, to tell him that I'd eat breakfast if he'd just let me walk about like the perfectly capable woman that I was...

  And then something caught my eye - something long, slender, with a note attached to it. Something that looked an awful lot like a Sniper Rifle, lying across the counter. My knees felt weak - I recognized the emblem engraved on the hilt. I knew whose rifle it was.

  "Oh, God." I didn't realize that I was falling forward until the Russian was there to catch me. I didn't realize that I was wrapping my arms around a complete stranger until I felt his hand on my back, holding me up.

  "There, there ptichka. You will learn to fly again." His voice was so soft, so soothing, and for some reason... it broke me.

  I didn't know the man, but I sobbed against his broad chest like my whole world had crashed around me... because it had, and the sight of Braydon's rifle laying there, as though it was his final farewell to me, brought it all colliding home.

 

\--

 

I learned that the Russian's name was Artem, and after that first morning of me breaking down, we never spoke of it again. Instead, we spoke of my weapon training, or cooking... we spoke of the country, and how I'd learned to fish and hunt. We spoke of my parents, and the fact that they were aging - I silently acknowledged the fact that I couldn't face them again, not now. Not with what had happened with Braydon... not with how I felt like such a failure. I couldn't let them see their daughter as the broken thing that she was...

  We didn't speak of the Sniper Rifle that I stowed carefully in the guest bedroom where I stayed. We certainly didn't speak of the note attached, from Braydon's father. Apparently, he'd told his family about me - he'd made it clear that if anything happened, he wanted me to have the rifle, and a note.

 I still hadn't opened it to read it. I couldn't. As long as the envelope was sealed, I still had a little part of him, closed up and close to my heart.

 I couldn't look at the gun without tearing up, and Artem seemed more than willing to let me pretend that I could leave his letter closed forever. The Russian was far more intent on making me lunch, or dinner, and regaling me with stories about a young man named Silas King, and all of the trouble that he'd gotten into as a child.

 It was strange - I felt more at home in the house than I had during my entire stay at the military - honestly, I felt more at home in the house than I had even back with my parents. There was something welcoming here, about the Russian... something that made me feel like I'd belonged here for a long while. Artem woke me each morning and forced breakfast into my belly, calling me a frail little ptichka, and saying I was all skin and bone. It took me three days to ask him what the word meant, and he smiled softly at me and answered that I was like a little bird.

 He also seemed capable of telling when my mind was wandering to the dark and painful side of my mentality, and he'd either bring about a new subject, or he'd make an excuse to give me a hug. He literally kept cookies on the ready to ply me with, if nothing else worked to change and pick up my mood.

 For two weeks, I found myself at a sort of peace, and I realized that the General had made the right decision in bringing me to this house, even if I had fought against it when I'd first woken up. Still, I couldn't stay forever - Braydon's gun was a constant reminder of what I needed to do, and why I needed to keep fighting. If nothing else, I was determined to make him proud - I couldn't carry on his legacy, but I could continue to do my job... and do it well, in his name.

 For his sake.

 I wasn't going to allow myself to be transferred, if I could at all help it. I didn't know if the General was going to allow me to simply keep doing what I'd been doing before, but I was going to fight to make sure that I kept my position.

 I was going to fight to make sure that I could carry on with what Braydon and I had started.

 I was going to fight to make sure that I could punish the people who had taken Braydon away from me.

 Maybe it was wrong, maybe it wasn't the right reason for me to have a cause to fight... but it was my reason nonetheless, and I was going to hold tight to it until I achieved it. Of course, I had to go so far as to convince first Artem, and then the General that I was completely fit for duty. As far as my injury went, a steady regimen of stimpaks and exercise had given me back nearly full mobility of my arm within the two weeks that I stayed there. I wasn't worried about being able to perform my duties.

 But my heart constricted with pain every time I thought about donning my greens, putting on my tags, and going back out into the field. It wasn't that I couldn't admit that Braydon was gone, but I was afraid of how I'd react the first time I heard a gun go off - I hadn't heard the noise when we'd been shot, but I could recall it in perfect clarity now; a sharp crack, followed by Braydon's smile forever being taken away.

 I think a part of me also resented the fact that I knew, even if I was put back into the same position... I was going to have to find a replacement for Braydon - I couldn't snipe without a spotter, not from the distances that I worked. No matter what I did, a part of me was going to have to grow accustomed to the fact that Braydon wasn't there anymore.

 I woke up on the Saturday of my second week at the King's home, and the smell of bacon was flooding into the room from my cracked door. I didn't remember leaving it open, but I had a feeling that Artem had probably popped in to check on me last night - I didn't remember making noises, but I knew that I'd been having a nightmare. He'd probably heard me - and oddly, I wasn't embarrassed. His voice was soothing, and I'd woken up to the sound of a soft lullaby, sang in a language that I didn't understand more than once. His voice had carried me back into a calm state, and back to sleep.

  If he'd had to check on me again last night, was he going to believe me when I told him this morning that I was ready to go back to the job? I pulled on my jacket, with determination pulsing through my veins steadily (I'd learned that it was actually one Silas King's jacket, but Artem had told me I could have it.) My eyes flickered momentarily to the sealed envelope that sat on the dresser, propped against the Sniper Rifle case that I'd carefully laid there... "G'morning, Braydon." My words were a soft, hushed whisper. "I'm going to do this for you, I swear." My stomach twisted into knots, and I closed my eyes for just a second before taking a deep breath and heading out of the room.

 As usual, Artem knew that I'd entered the room without even looking - I had my suspicions that he was more than some simple house-husband, but I wasn't going to utter them aloud. The Russian clearly put himself into the role, and I wasn't going to pry if he didn't want to share. "Ah, ptichka, I was wondering when you would wake." And then in a softer tone, so that the sound of bacon sizzling nearly overpowered his words, "How did you sleep last night?"

  ~~I dreamed of Braydon dying in my arms at least a dozen times~~ ~~.~~  "Perfectly fine, thank you. I can't really remember dreaming, so that's a plus." I smiled at him, and I wished that it could read to my eyes. He cocked his head to the side, fixing me with a penetrating gaze, and then quickly let the shrewd expression slip into a warm smile.

  "This is good to hear. You are growing stronger every day." He sounded like a proud Papa, and the tone made my heart hurt. Worse than the fact that I missed Braydon was the fact that I _blamed myself_ for what had happened. In doing so, I didn't feel like I really deserved the affection that the Russian was imparting on me. In fact, I would have rather been thrown straight back to duty; I'd heard Artem talking on the phone a few nights prior about the fact that the major threat to me had been eliminated, and it was as safe as it ever could be for me to return to the force. I'd also heard, just as blatantly, that he didn't think I was ready to return just yet. A few more days, he'd said, and whoever he was speaking to had agreed.

  I had to assume that it was the General, and a part of me burned at the fact that either of them gave a damn - I wasn't anything special. In fact, I was a failure. I'd not been able to protect my partner, and I didn't warrant such close monitoring. They needed to just let me get back to my job, and if I died... well, if I died, did it actually matter?

  I sat at the table compliantly, pulling the large jacket up and around my neck - there was something comforting in the way that it was oversized, like it was certainly made for a man much taller than myself. It smelled soft, musky, and my stomach clenched because the scent reminded me of Braydon - did all military brats have the same damn smell? Of course, it was different - there were honeyed hints of sweetness to the scent, where Braydon had been all hard edges and steel. I sighed softly, and turned to look at my keeper.

  "Breakfast. Eat up." He slid a plate home in front of me, and I looked down at the carefully arranged food with a small smile that was nearly watery. Why did he care so much?

  I picked up my fork with half numb fingers, trying to figure out how to best word my plea. I couldn't just stay in this house forever, as much as the thought of it was a glowing warmth that promised to be full of the intangible, silk-woven calmness that Artem had spun over me. I couldn't though - even though I imagined that he might actually _let me_ if I asked. I couldn't, because I had to get back out onto the field. I had to be strong, for Braydon.

 "Artem..." I said his name carefully, and I saw the shrewdness instantly come back into his gaze. It was like he could read my mind, because he tsk'd lightly and tilted his head.

  "Now, time for talk is later. Finish your food, before it is cold." His voice was so stern that I just looked down at my plate with a nod. I couldn't argue with him - for some reason, the sarcastic, witty nature that I usually held up like a shield simply wouldn't present itself in his presence. Or maybe something inside of me was broken, and I wasn't going to be able to find it again, at all. God, I hoped that it was the former in opposition to the latter, because I wasn't sure how to act, if I couldn't fall back on my usual behaviors.

  I didn't want to think that I was irrevocably broken beyond all repair.

  A part of me already knew that I was, and it was that part that had my head bowed over my meal until I was finished. We ate in silence, and it wasn't comfortable - I think that Artem knew what I was going to ask for, and I had a feeling that he wasn't going to feel inclined to acquiesce to my request.

  When the last bit of eggs was carefully forked into my mouth, I took a second to get a drink and gather my thoughts. I didn't look up at Artem when I spoke. "You've been very kind to me." Words - true words. I wasn't sure if I'd have managed to recover at all, had I been stuck on the military base with the cold, clinical eyes of their doctors watching over me. Worse, they'd have given me some kind of psych evaluation, and I wasn't sure that I would have passed it. No, Artem had saved me, really... he and his kindness, and his soft lullabies and pet names. Even if he didn't know it, and even if I could never really say it, he had.

  "Ah, but you deserve the kindness, ptichka." His tone was careful but confident, and I wondered how he actually believed those words. "And you will do well, when you return to the General." _When_ , he said, and he said it pointedly, as though to veer me from my train of thought before I'd even caught to the rails. As much as I wanted to let him steer me away, the rifle in my room was a constant reminder that I had to find my strength again, even if I wasn't sure where it was in the darkness that was my mind.

  "I don't know what I deserve, Artem," I smiled softly at him, pushing the plate away and pulling the jacket more securely around me. "But I do know that I have to get back." His brows knit together in protest, and I held up my hand. My lower lip actually trembled when I spoke, and I hated myself for it. "I'm fine," he opened his mouth, and I quickly added, "Physically. And I won't heal emotionally until I face my demons."

 It was a painful truth, but I watched it slide behind his eyes - like a large cat, slipping through the darkness of the jungle, the part of him that I _knew_ was there, behind the facade of house-husband. My suspicions were confirmed from that roiling pass of emotion that my words elicited. He was certainly something _other_ . "Ptichka," his voice was careful, liquid smooth like silk - or steel. "Your demons do not control you." _His didn't control him._ I could hear it in his words, though he didn't say it.

  "They will, if I don't face them, Artem. The longer I hide here, the more of a grip they have on me." ~~I want to stay here, forever.~~  "I can't stay here, or I'm never going to face it."

  He stared at me long and hard for a moment, and I watched those dark emotions battle in the back of his gaze with something fiercely protective. Finally, open palms splayed on the table, and he smiled at me. "Little ptichka, ready to fly again so soon. I will tell Renigald." I didn't recognize the name, but I knew that he was speaking about the General.

  "Thank you." I could hear the tears in my voice, but managed to stand tall. I turned to put my dish in the sink, and I heard his chair scrape a moment before he pulled me into a warm hug. The plate was shifted from my fingers to the table in a smooth motion that freed up my arms, and I hugged him back in turn. My tears were silent this time, and his voice was soft as he spoke.

 "Just make sure you do not fly too far - you always have a home here." And my heart broke just a little, because I knew that he meant it. And I knew, as long as the guilt of Braydon's death weighed heavy on my heart, that I could never come back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, one more chapter after this, and then we are in the events of Fallout 4. ^_^ I hope you guys are enjoying River's journey. It's a lot longer than I expected it to be.


	5. Fortune's Smile

I don't know how I managed to talk my way back into service, but by some miracle, the General let me back in. My only complaint was the fact that I was going to have to serve with a unit, until I'd found my match in a spotter. I understood the need to make sure that the Sniper and Spotter worked like a cohesive unit, but there was a part of me that didn't want to find someone that I worked with as well as I had Braydon.

  There was a part of me that was Hell bent on making sure that whoever my partner was, they'd know that the position had already been filled, and they could never take his place. I think that the General could see that furious denial in my eyes, but he didn't seem angry about it. If anything, it made him frown from pity.

  I didn't like pity, but I liked the General, so I let the bus ship me off to my squad without arguments - apparently I was looking for someone there named Fortune. From what I'd heard, Fortune wasn't any happier to be placed on a new unit than I was - in fact, rumor had it that her Captain had gone and gotten himself blown up, and she was loathe to leave the hospital where he and her former unit were now stationed.

  At least we had something in common - neither of us wanted to be put with a new unit, but the General seemed determined to make sure that we worked well together while we had the backup of a squad, before he sent us out on solo missions like Braydon and I had run. There was a part of me that wondered if the General was actually giving me a field run, to see if I could even function in combat - I didn't appreciate it, but I _understood_ it.

 What I didn't appreciate more was the way that the squad looked at me as I came off of the bus, all tall men who looked at me in the thick green army jacket that still smelled like Silas King, and half stuck their noses up in the air.

 "Didn't know they were sending us a shrimp for our new recruit. Her rifle must be bigger than she i-"

 "If you want to keep your position and not be stuck on latrine duty when we ship out, I suggest you button it, Wilkes." A harsh, clipped tone, and my eyes shifted to the back of the group.

  To a woman who stood a headspan taller than me, with red hair pulled back in a tight bun. To a woman whose green eyes sparkled mischief, but the bags beneath them spoke of worry.

 "Welcome to the Squad, Malcolm." She spilled forward, and held out her hand, "I'm Captain Fortune. We've been waiting for you." And her end sentence was clipped out hard, as though _daring_ any of the men to question the eagerness of their _waiting_.

  All of the biting, scathing remarks that I'd been harboring for my new partner went up in smoke, and I couldn't help the slow smile that broke across my visage.

  "Thank you, Captain." I shook her hand, and then kindly turned to the man who'd spoken, "And don't be jealous, _Wilkes_ , just 'cause mine's bigger than yours." I winked, he flushed crimson. And Fortune...

  Well, Fortune _smiled._

 

\--

 

It was shockingly easy, how well Captain Fortune, call me Nora, got along. If I didn't know better, I'd say that the General put us together on purpose. I knew that he'd heard about my snarky personality, and apparently Nora Fortune wasn't much better. The only difference between the two of us was that, somehow, Nora had learned to curb her sarcasm when around authority. Of course, now she _was_ the authority, and it really seemed like she didn't want it at all. I had a feeling that it had something to do with the fact that her Captain was sitting in the medical unit, and she wasn't there.

  I recognized the look - she didn't have to say it.

  I wondered if the General knew _that,_ too.

  Something told me that he did - and something told me that he was one of the strangest General's that I'd ever heard of, because he truly didn't seem to _mind_ , so long as it was handled in a professional fashion. Of course, war raging rampant had forced them to allow women into the military. I suppose that there were some people who were more understanding than others - there wasn't a real fraternization policy, but it was well known that using your position for sexual advantage, and fraternizing when you should have been training was frowned upon.

 I wasn't sure about anything anymore, other than the fact that Nora and I seemed to have more in common than I'd ever thought we would. Though her Captain - who I found out was the owner of the jacket that I wore so religiously - had been injured while protecting a man named _Quinn (_ and Nora said his name with the same animal in her eyes as she did Silas King), he was still someone that she cared for... and there was still nothing that she'd been able to do to prevent the damage.

  I wondered if she blamed herself as well. It wasn't something that I was going to ask her, just as she had the decency to never bring up Braydon to me, though there were times when I caught her like she had something on the tip of her tongue that she wanted to say - we both seemed to feel that way.

  But, part of the reason that we got along so well, I think, is because we never brought it up. We simply trained together for a week before being shipped out to the battlefront - it was our time to shine. Our time to show the military that we could work well together. I knew that this was our test run, and I'd spent the entire week prior making myself grow accustomed to the sound of rifles firing.

  It still streaked through my heart like some vicious beast, but I didn't jerk violently when I heard it anymore. The first time, Nora had stepped closer to me, her hand coming to my shoulder to quell the trembling that pulsed through my body before anyone on our squad had noticed. Her hand on my shoulder was a constant comfort, and after a few days, the trembling had stopped.

  After a few days, I was looking down the site of my rifle, and remembering everything that Braydon had taught me. Soft, slow breathing. A quick release - a center shot, perfectly aligned on the target.

  I could almost hear his words echoing softly in my head, and every time I managed my shot without flinching, it made something in my stomach ache. The letter from him, stowed carefully in the inner lining of his Sniper Rifle's case pounded in my mind like some reverberating plea - but I still couldn't open it. I didn't want to let that last part of him go.

  Nora caught me looking at the case sometimes, and she never questioned it. When we were shipped out, I asked that the entire lot be put in a safe box - and it hurt me to leave it behind... but I wasn't taking it onto the battlefield.

  I didn't know if I was even going to come home - and I couldn't stand the thought of the rifle in the hands of the enemy.

  For the first two weeks, things went well - though we weren't sent after individual targets, I hung in the back lines with Nora. She called shots for me with perfect precision, and we did a good job of laying waste to the enemies Captains, to their squad leaders. Even in the chaos of the fighting, we made a good team. After a week of it, our squad had grown a grudging respect for the both of us - they realized that the two women who hung at the back lines were their only real defense from the enemies that they couldn't see. I took the grudging respect for what it was, while secretly my mind realized something.

  This was the kind of killing that I expected - amongst the sound of screaming, explosions, power armor firing off rounds with a minigun. Impersonal, without family and friends around to lament and mourn.

  This was what I'd expected when I'd signed up...

  And I didn't feel any less guilty, whenever I pulled the trigger.

  Even if I'd transferred with Braydon, it wouldn't have made a difference. The loss of a life was the loss of a life, and there was no way to dance around it. Just because I didn't have to see the children staring at their parents, their loved ones sobbing... it didn't mean that I couldn't imagine it.

  It didn't mean that I didn't have nightmares about it, intermingled with the vision of Braydon's blue eyes.

  Nora woke me from one of those dreams, her bunk positioned next to mine. Her green eyes were brilliant, alert - and she realized then what I assume she'd known all along - there was more to me than a simple Sniper... and I was far more broken than I was letting on.

  She'd moved her bunk closer to mine after that, and sometimes I woke with her hand held tight in my own. Sometimes, I was the one who stretched out and took her hand, because she murmured the names Silas and Quinn under her breath in a fevered tone of pure worry and agony, and all that we could do was rely on one another to keep the demons at bay.

  It was in the cool Alaskan Winter that it happened - we were positioned on a hill, with our team a few hundred yards below us. Nora carefully watched her equipment, murmuring out coordinates for me to aim at, and I was only too happy to follow the orders.

  "There's another to the west - it looks like he's signaling the troops for something. Take him out, maybe it will scramble them, River." Nora pulled her scope and sighted down it, checking for the wind and distance so that I could adjust my aim accordingly. I sat, poised and ready at my rifle... but her voice never came.

  I knew in the instant that Nora's breath came in a sharp gasp that something was wrong - I twisted, my hands pulling my rifle around; bad idea, it was too long, and the shimmering image of the stealthed Chinese wavered in the cool Alaskan air. That wavering, near invisible image had already knocked Nora out, and I had a second to scream out, "They're Stealthed!" as loud as I could, hoping that my boys would hear it... and then a boot collided with the edge of my jaw, and I knew no more.

 

\--

 

 I woke, and the room was dark. There was a snarled scream in the corner of the room, and I tried to jerk up. Instantly, I was made aware of the fact that my wrists and ankles were cuffed to a table, and I was sprawled out. My head twisted - beside me, Nora was chained to a chair, and judging by the blood at the corner of her mouth and the cut above her brow, she'd been awake and sharing her opinion of the situation a little longer than I had. Two men stood between us - twins, it seemed. Their dark black eyes were like liquid sadism, and their mouths were both twisted into a frown.

  "You are Captain of your Squad - you know the coordinates to your base, the coordinates to your headquarters. You will tell us all you know."

   Nora stared up at the man with furious green eyes, molten like the fires of Hell. They both had another thing coming if they actually thought that she was going to speak. When the silent brother's hand lashed out, catching at Nora's jaw and sending her head cracking to the side, words exploded from my chest before I could stop myself.

  "Do you fucks really think that you're going to get any useful information that way? C'mon, boys, haven't you ever heard about catching more flies with honey?" And then, lower, "You fucking bastards."

  Nora's green eyes instantly flared, and she looked at me - I could tell what her gaze said. _Don't draw attention to yourself. That's an order._

  God, but it was a good thing that I never took command seriously, especially when Nora had all but insisted that I treat her as a partner, and not my Captain. I didn't know if they'd managed to catch any more of our squad, and I didn't want to find out. I wanted to keep them off of Nora, if it at all possible, but I knew that the redhead was going to make it harder than I wanted it to be.

  "Ah, so she wakes. Frail little thing, I thought our men broke you when they brought you in." I could feel the thickness in my head, and the way that my lower lip had busted and shredded against my teeth. I tongued the wounds, and they stung. It didn't matter though - nothing mattered, except for keeping the bastards away from Nora's bleeding face.

  "Tougher than you think, bastard. Though," I grinned, and it pulled at my wounds, "Your men sure do break easy - one bullet to the head, and they're down for the count."

  There was a blur of motion, and the silent brother pulled a gun out, pressing it against my forehead. I flinched, but it wasn't in fear. I let my fury pour through my body - these fuckers... they were the reason that Braydon was dead. For all I knew, they had personally known the man who'd shot him. I let all of my fury and hatred pour through my gaze, and hissed in irritation when I heard Nora's voice spill out - and fuck me, but I knew that it was probably the first time she'd broken her silence.

  "Leave her alone - she's just a Private, she can't tell you anything."

  There was a ferocity and fury in her tone that made a small tremble pulse along my spine, and I knew that she and I were going to go to rounds - neither had the ability to stop trying to save the other. We both carried the weight and guilt of letting down people that we cared for before... and even though I'd only known her for a few weeks, I already loved Nora like the sister that my mother had never been able to have.

  From the way that she all but jutted her jaw out for the next rounding punch from the silent brother, I had the notion that the feeling was mutual.

  "Captain Fortune," Nora's eyes narrowed at the use of her name, though I knew that they'd read it from her tags. "Don't try to protect the girl. We know her by reputation alone - the little devil, the silent shadow." It was the brother who spoke that rounded on me this time, and he grabbed me roughly by the chin. "We've been gathering intel on her for months - she and her dead partner." At the mention of Braydon, I let out a low snarl, jerking my head as hard as I could; the vice like grip of his fingers refused to release me, and for some reason, it triggered something in me.

 I began to thrash hard, my teeth coming in a hard click as I tried to bite him. He laughed above me, and his grip turned into a hard slap that cracked my head to the side. "Little bitch, you've killed too many of our men. And you," he rounded on Nora, "I know about your squad - running in bravely, taking out entire troops with your maneuvers and skills. Oh, yes." He grinned, and it was a filthy thing, "We managed to capture quite the prime choices today."

  They had to be in intel, to know Nora and I both. I knew that I'd made a name for myself, and the General himself had spoken about how someone was looking for me. They'd thought the threat was eliminated, but clearly they were wrong.

 And though I hadn't heard about Nora's previous squad personally, I could tell from the way that the boys in our outfit acted that they knew of her.

  "We heard that the General's son was taken out by one of our launchers." The man continued to speak, but at the mention of Silas King, I saw her body stiffen. "We meant to take out his little companion, but it was a glorious bounty, young Captain King." I could see the fury pouring over Nora's entire frame, and it seemed to spill through her and into me - the man wasn't paying attention. He was far too enraptured in the agony that he was causing Nora... and he was far too close to me to get away with it unscathed.

 I couldn't do much, but I could twist my head to the side and catch the side of his hand between my teeth. I bit hard, until I tasted crimson and heard a light crunch of teeth pressing to bone. He jerked back violently, his eyes flaring wide and furious. The silent brother moved forward in a motion of liquid grace, and his hand was around my neck before I could take a breath to call them both bastards.

  Suddenly, I couldn't breathe. He wasn't just restraining me, he was strangling me, and Nora could only watch in wide eyed horror as my eyes flared wide and I thrashed in an attempt to gain access to the precious commodity that was oxygen.

  "You will do well to learn your place, woman. Americans," The brother that wasn't strangling me cradled his bleeding hand, wrapping a strip of fabric around the wound. "You think that you can do whatever you want - and your army is so disgraced as to let _women_ into their ranks. I think that it's high time that we went a message, don't you, Ji?"

  The silent brother finally spoke, and his dark eyes were focused down, jet black like a beetle as he continued to choke the life from me. "Yes."

  I saw my death in that gaze, and I couldn't do anything to stop it. My body twisted, but I couldn't break his grasp - my vision was starbursts and agony, and my throat was burning from the pressure that he bared down with. Being strangled wasn't something pretty, or easy. My head felt like it was going to explode, all of the blood trapped with no ability to shift from one place to another.

  "Let her go!" Nora's voice was a scream, a plea, a demand all at once. "Let her the fuck go, or I swear to God, you won't learn shit from me!" I actually heard the strain of the chains around her wrists - oddly, my world was narrowing down to a fine point as black began to eat at the edge of my vision. I didn't have the strength to struggle anymore - I didn't have the strength to do much at all.

 The only thing that I could do was work my mouth in silent words. If I'd been myself at all, they would have been _fuck you, you bastard._

 But I was dying, at least it felt like I was... and my only thought was of Braydon, and his blue eyes... and the fact that at least when I did pass, he'd be waiting for me. At least, I hoped he would be... I wasn't a religious person by any means, but I had to think that there was something... something else.

 Something that we were all fighting for - at least somewhere that men like Braydon were allowed to go, after their service. After we worked so hard to make the world a better place without actually managing to see the outcome.

  " **Let her the fuck go**!" Nora's voice was thunderous through the room, though it sounded so far away to me. I heard a snap, and suddenly my lungs were doing everything that they could to draw in mouthfuls of air when the silent brother released me. My vision was still bursts of stars, but my lungs were weeping for the fact that they were regaining access to oxygen, my brain crying because it was once more attaining the ability to think.

  "You are no Captain here, Fortune. You are nothing - you do not deliver orders, and we do not follow the whims of women." The man's bleeding hand ran along Nora's face, streaking a line from ear, across her lips, to her other ear. He grinned, and it was nefarious and evil all at once. It made something low in my stomach roll with fear. My primal urge was to run, to flee, to figure out a way to get out of here... because it was clear that these men weren't intending to just kill us - they were going to use us to send a message, just as they'd said.

  I didn't want to know what the message would be, and I didn't want to think of how well it would be received. I just wanted the strength to get through this... but more than that...

  I just wanted to go  _home._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, if all goes according to plan... the bomb drops at the end of the next chapter. I'm excited xD


	6. Atom Bomb, Baby

****Everything about me hurt, but I didn't care. I couldn't _think_ about what the brothers had done to me - a fucked up interpretation of catching more flies with honey, I imagine. My entire body was one burn of shame from it... and all that I could see was their dark eyes looming over me while they...

  But it didn't matter, because Nora _wasn't moving_ , and her body was one rivulet of scarlet like a waterfall spilling down her frame from ear to ear to sweep across her chest. When Jin had traced a crimson streak along her face, it had pulled something in the pit of my stomach - at least I'd only been raped...

  They'd _cut_ her, when she'd promised to talk if they'd just _get off of me_. They'd cut her, because she'd played weak and had Ji lean close... only to headbutt him with such ferocity that, even in my pain-filled state, I saw him spit out a tooth.

Even when they'd pulled out the blade, Nora hadn't screamed... and when the blood had started to flow...

  I couldn't shout loud enough - I was hoarse from it. Finally, Jin had come to me, and the last thing I'd known was his fist slamming against my face.

  When I woke, Nora wasn't moving. Worse, I was still chained down, my clothing still stripped from my blood streaked, bruised and cut body. The brothers had been creative when they were trying to strip me of my innocence, and when I'd had the audacity to insult the size of their pricks, they'd started using their knives.

  But my body didn't matter... because Nora was...

  "Nora." I tried to shout her name, but my throat was raw. It came out as a strangled whisper... and only then, in the silence of the room and with the brothers gone did I start to cry. "Nora, wake up."

  They'd crudely stitched her face up while I'd been unconscious. Her new grin was a split of skin, a Glasgow smile that left her pale... but she was still soaked scarlet - they hadn't bothered to clean her up before they’d left the room. I couldn't tell if her chest was rising and falling.

  I couldn't tell if she was _breathing._

  "Nora..." My voice cracked in pain - I tried to jerk against my restraints, but my wrists were so raw that the sensation burned. While they'd been on top of me, I'd fought like a wildcat beneath them, and I'd torn my skin in the process. My body tried to jerk me back to the memory of it, but my horror at Nora's quiescent form kept me in the here and now. " _Captain Fortune_ , _please..._ " I shouted as loud as I could, so that my voice cracked and a hard sob caught in my chest and ached out like a scream.

  The sound did nothing. She didn't move - her crimson lashes stayed stuck to blood coated cheeks like half moon crescents.

  "Nora..." I croaked her name out again, and I could hear the desperation in my tone now. There was a part of me that feared she wouldn't wake, no matter how many times I said her name. There was a part of me that worried that she'd bled too much, felt too much shock from the torture.

 I wasn't even sure what they'd done to her, after Jin had knocked me out. I couldn't be sure of how much more damage she'd suffered... and all because she'd tried to pull their attentions from me.

 I could have taken it. "I could have taken it, Nora."

 No matter what they'd done to me, it wasn't worth how she was hurting now. No matter what they'd done, or how much Ji had... I shook my head, and another sob jerked out of my chest. I couldn't do this... I couldn't sit here and stare at her prone form without trying to do _something_. I needed to get to her.

 I jerked my wrist hard, and felt pain lance up my arm again - the blood that came from my raw and torn flesh was dry... but I could use it to my advantage. I bit my lower lip, uncomfortable in how the flesh was shredded, but it kept me from crying out as I drew my hand hard against the chains - hard enough that I felt the wound rip open again.

 Hard enough that hot streaks of slicked crimson spilled out... with that slicked lubrication, I started to pull as hard as I could, in rapid movements that tore the breath from my chest with the pain. But... it was working. Slicked with blood, my hand was starting to pull free from the chains - the rattling, however, didn't cause Nora to stir. She _still_ wasn't moving, and desperation was beginning to run through me like a living, breathing thing.

 "Nora, you have to get up. We need to _get out of here_ ." I jerked hard at the chain again, and felt my wrist start to strain - I'd break it if it meant we could get out of here. I didn't care. "Nora, _please._ " Tears were stinging my eyes, but they weren't from pain - they were from the writhing emotions in my chest, the ugly voices that told me that Nora was dead, just like Braydon was dead... and it was all my fault.

 "Nora. **Nora!** " I shouted her name, and the last syllable ripped into a scream. Something in my wrist _popped_ , and my hand slid free from the chains. My fingers, though free, were numb. I stared dumbly down at my hand for a moment, pulling myself to sit up as best I could...

 And then there was the loud pop-pop-pop of gunfire, and my eyes widened. My entire body went cold and numb. I couldn't...

  I couldn't...

   ~~Braydon's glassy eyes, dead and unseeing. Nora, not moving. Ji, on top of me, thrusting hard and rubbing my insides raw with his invasive prick as he leered down at me.~~

  "Please, no." I murmured the words, and it was only my chains that kept me from curling into a ball as I heard a key slide home in the door. I stared, wide eyed and terrified as the door frame swung open. Jin's face was there, but his expression was one of terror...

 And then there was a burst of crimson as a bullet poured from the front of his head, sending brain and blood flying... and his body fell limp to the ground.

 Standing behind him was what I thought, for a moment, to be a demon. His eyes were green, like the ghostfire of Lucifer's gaze, and blood streaked along the left side of his face, though I couldn’t tell if it was his own. His full lips were turned down in an expression of apathy at what he’d just done. I could see that his jacket was riddled with cuts and bullet holes, but he didn't seem to feel it. He kicked aside Jin's body unceremoniously, my torturer reduced to a corpse in one pull of the trigger, and slid the pistol in his hand home at his belt. He saw me first, and I shuddered at the dead winter in his green eyes.

  " _Where_ is Nora?" His voice tore chills down my spine - he sounded _cold_. Fury and enmity wrapped into a small, muscled package. I couldn't answer. I could only turn my eyes numbly to the figure in the chair - the unmoving figure of Nora Fortune.

 The man's eyes shifted, and I saw it visibly rock through his frame when he saw her prone frame, bloody and chained to the chair.

  For a moment, he did nothing - he simply stood there and stared at her prone form as though his entire world had crashed around his feet. And then he was moving, and it was damn near a blur of motion. He was in front of her and kneeling, and I hadn't even managed to keep up with the motion. His hands came out, and I saw his full lips quivering - the near sociopathic expression that had been trembling over him earlier was gone, and his entire body was a wave of displeasure and sorrow. I could hear guns still going off in the distance, but he didn't seem to care.

 HIs full attention was on Nora, and he brought his hands to slowly lift her head without touching her cheeks - he took her pulse... and something in his shoulders relaxed. "Nora... Nora, baby." Decorum be damned - he didn't seem to care that there was a witness to his affection for her. "Nora, you have to wake up. I'm here..." He shifted, and began to work at her restraints - it took me a moment to realize that he pulled a bobby pin from his pocket, but it only took a few moments before the lock clicked, and the chains fell from her. She was limp as she fell forward, but I actually saw her taking a shuddering breath when he pulled her upright. He moved in a flurry of motion that had his jacket off and wrapped around her, and then he pulled her bridal style against his chest and stood with her. It was as though just his presence, his body, his scent was enough to revive her... because for just a moment, green eyes slid open.

 "Quinn..?" So much pain - she shouldn't have been talking. I didn’t know _how_ she managed to say his name at all around her wounds.

 "I'm here. I’ll _always_ find you."

 And then she fell once more into unconsciousness. He held her close to his chest, and only then did his eyes slide back to me.

  They were full of unspoken emotions that swirled in his green gaze, and it made my stomach clench. The cold fury was more frightening than the look in Ji's eyes... but the sorrow was thick enough that it nearly drowned me, cloying on my senses and agonizing just to look at. "You're River, right?" His voice shook when he spoke, and it made him hold Nora all the tighter. My voice found itself stuck on a lump in my chest; fear, relief... I wasn't sure what to feel, because Quinn looked like he was ready to burn the place to the ground, and watch as everyone inside screamed from the flames.

  Finally, I settled on nodding. With Nora still in his arms, he moved forward. I wasn't sure how he managed, but the chains slid from my body. "I can send someone in after you." I didn't know if it was his state of mind, but he wasn't even looking at my nude form. His eyes were all for the woman in his arms, and I could see the tenderness and love there, riding on wings of hatred for the people who had done this to her.

 "Who did this to you both?" His eyes never moved, but I saw another spark of malevolence in his gaze, and I knew why he asked.

 "You just killed one of them - the other looks just like him. Ji. His twin." I pushed myself from the table, though my entire body protested. Quinn's gaze jerked up to my swaying form, but I caught myself against the blood soaked table before I fell.

 Only then did Quinn seem to realize the state of my undress. He shifted Nora in his arms, and the black tank top that he wore left his frame - I had a glimpse of a long, jagged scar along his back, and then the black fabric was flicked at me. "Can you walk?"

  "Yes." ~~No.~~ "We need to get her out of here." I think it was the answering concern for Nora in my voice that made Quinn respond to me - a brief flick of his eyes, and he nodded. "Take the pistol at the small of my back. We're going." I pulled the length of his tank top over my body, and my senses were instantly flooded with familiarity. I _knew_ that scent. It lingered on Silas King's jacket... I stared at Quinn for a moment, and his impassive green eyes stared back with impatience.

  Later. Later, but for now... for now, that scent brought a small measure of comfort to me, and the look of determination in his eyes gave me the rest that I needed. I stepped forward, taking the pistol. I took a moment to look over his body - bullet holes graced along his shoulder, and there was a small gash on his ribs... but his flesh was covered in scars, and he didn't seem to notice his fresh wounds.

  Quinn seemed completely derelict to everything, save for the fact that Nora Fortune was in his arms, and she was still breathing. I had to admit, the knowledge of that was the only thing that gave me the strength to stand - I knew that my body wasn't actually ready to move. Ji hadn't been careful in his assault, and everything inside and out burned in consequence. Still... I moved, cradling the pistol that I'd taken from Quinn in the hand that I hadn't injured.

 We stepped to the door just as a figure graced the entrance. I recognized his face immediately - Ji, who was staring down at his brother's dead body with rage blossoming across his frame. A sword was held in his hand, and he charged at Quinn - more directly, at Nora in his arms.

  "Quinn!" I shouted his name, but he was already moving. There was no worry for himself - he twisted around, and I watched the sword slip into his lower back. He didn't scream - I didn't even see pain slip across his visage - he was like some goddamn robot. I only saw him jerk his gaze up to look at me, and I knew what he wanted by the streaking antipathy and hatred in his gaze.

 Ji's face was contorted in fury, but all that I could see was him leaning over me, greedy hands scouring my body, blunt nails digging at my flesh. His mouth was hot and stank of alcohol, and there was no mercy when he raped me.

 He wore my jacket now like a fucking trophy, and my dog tags swung around his neck where he'd dropped them.

 I had no mercy for him now when I raised my good hand and squeezed off a round. He fell atop his brother, and I shifted forward without thinking. I stripped the jacket from his frame, and jerked my tags up over his neck.

 "Fuck you." I hissed the words out, and then tried to push myself back to my feet.

 I couldn't.

 Nausea and pain rocked over me, and I heard Quinn say my name... but nothing else. I fell forward, and my arms wrapped protectively around the jacket that I held as I fainted.

 

\--

 

The next few weeks were a blur of medical procedures and sleep. When I woke, I was in a cool white hospital bed, and Quinn was sitting in a chair in the corner. It took me a moment to realize that he was there because of Nora, who was lying silently on the bed beside me. She slept, but they'd fixed her stitches. The angry red marks were going to scar, but they were already lessened with the medical attention that the Military could provide.

 Quinn sat upright, as though he hadn't been stabbed and shot, and his voice was soft when he spoke... he was like a completely different person sitting in front of me. Sweet, soft, all easy smiles and charm. The demon that had torn through the Chinese base didn't exist, and it was almost frightening to know that he had that residing with him. In the same breath, it was a relief to know that he could do what needed to be done.

 I learned that one member of our squad survived - and Ji and Jin had spoken of taking Nora and myself to their base closeby to get information. He'd told the General himself what he knew, and somehow, Quinn had found out.

 Without orders, he'd set off to the base himself, but his entire squad had ended up following him. They'd killed everyone inside, everyone involved... and the only living beings who knew about what had happened to Nora Fortune and myself were alive and in this room.

 I was kept on bedrest for the week, and in that time, I came to know Quinn and his squad - they all dipped in to visit, and all of them seemed more than willing to accept me into the fold of their little family, as though I'd been a part of it all along. Best, though, was when Nora woke. Though it still pained her to speak, she was all bright eyes and joy at seeing me alive and well beside her. When Quinn entered the room in a tank top with fresh, pink scars gracing his skin... she had the strength to look at him in disapproval.

 I turned my head and pretended I wasn't there when he knelt over her, pressing a soft kiss to her wounded pout. The disapproval didn't disappear from her gaze, but it was chased around by _love_.

 They kept the two of us fairly medicated - apparently, I'd sustained more damage than I realized. Head wound, broken wrist, deep bruising, a few breaks... after a few weeks, we were both released to light duty around the hospital grounds. I still hadn't managed to regain my full strength, and the doctors looked at me with a worried glance, mentioning something about _biological infection._ They asked if they'd injected me with anything, done anything other than torture me.

 Nora and I both kept silent about my rape, and I loved her for it. Still, the doctors insisted upon doing blood work.

 It was that blood work that had the doctor coming into our room that we shared a week later. Nora was lounging easy on her bed, muttering frustrations about being forced onto light duty - still, there was joy in her eyes. She'd received news that her Captain King had woken from his coma... and though he was in pain, he was going to make a full recovery. They weren't sure if he'd be allowed back onto duty at all, but the fact that he'd woken...

 Nora's smile was still beautiful - Ji and Jin hadn't broken her of that at all, though I could tell that she thought they had. When a light knock came to the door and the doctors entered, we both turned rapt attention to them.

 "Malcolm, can we have a word?" Grave, serious... I frowned. I'd been feeling queasy, and the boys of Nora's squad had been making sure I'd gotten through my rounds safely.

 "You've already had a few," I razzed them lightly, "But go ahead."

 "Should we step into the hall," The doctor's eyes turned to Nora, and I shook my head.

 "I don't care what you have to say - she can hear it." But his disapproving look told me that he didn't agree. Stubbornly, I stayed in my bed.

 "Fine." And he glared at me - I'd been giving him shit for weeks, with my sparkling personality in the face of authority. It was probably that which caused him to be a bit more callous than he could have otherwise been. "When you were with the Chinese, were you assaulted in a sexual manner?"

  Everything inside of me froze, and I knew that it swept over my entire body. I didn't answer, but Nora did it for me.

 "No, she wasn't." I could have wept. "And I find your tone insulting. Do I need to bring your behavior up to the General himself?" My eyes stung with tears at her tone, so carefully spoken around her wounds. Bless stimpaks for making her heal faster than she would have normally. Bless them for giving her the ability to speak for me now.

  "Then we're having a bit of a problem understanding your bloodwork, Malcolm. It's come up positive." The reproach was still in the doctor's tone, but it was carefully tempered with false concern.

 "Positive?" I stared at him dumbly, though in the back of my mind, I knew what he meant.

 "River?" Nora, carefully, her hand coming to my arm as the doctor answered me.

 "You're pregnant, Malcolm."

\--

 

 No one but Nora understood why I refused an abortion. They thought it was in moral ground - she alone knew the truth. I hadn't been keeping track of my period much with service, and though I knew it was a slim chance...

 So slim...

 My hands hovered over my stomach, clenching the jacket that I still wore... we'd only been together once, but the baby could have been...

 "Braydon's?" And I wept at the name, until Nora drew me into her arms and held me against her. She understood - if there was a chance, even the slightest chance that I could have a piece of him...

  My rapist was dead, and a baby was growing in my womb. I knew then, no matter how the baby came out, to me... it was going to be Braydon's.

 

\--

 

  I wasn't ashamed of being discharged from the Army - it was medical leave, because my stomach was starting to swell, and I was no longer fit for combat. Nora had been sent home a few weeks prior - an explosive to the face will do that. I didn't know if the General sent her home because of her injuries, or because Silas King had been sent home, and was probably having a small fit for the fact that his lovers were there without him... and apparently getting blown up.

 Nora was pissed, and she made me promise to watch after Quinn for as long as I could. The man was honestly trouble waiting to happen - the fact that he managed to get knife wound while defending the _hospital_ from a stray scout told me that much. But he was all smiles and charm, and watching his heart break as his lovers left him was something that made my gut clench.

 But I couldn't watch him for longer - his entire squad promised that they'd do so, and it was the best that I could do... because I had a house waiting for me in a place called Sanctuary Hills, and the baby in my stomach was starting to kick and demand that I pay him attention.

 Everyone looked at me oddly as I cradled my stomach, and I knew why - they thought I was doting on the baby of a Chinese man. I couldn't explain it to them, and I damn well didn't want to. The doctors told me that it was a boy, and I was happy enough with that - my little Shaun Robert and I went home.

 It only took me a few weeks to realize that the people of Sanctuary Hills were the type to raise their nose at a pregnant woman alone, and only a few weeks longer to find a solution. Nate Tresdon didn't want to get married - at least not to a woman. But he did want the Community to stop looking down on him. I found him one day at the Red Rocket station a few clicks over the town's bridge, and we'd hit it off. In him, I found solace, and peace. In me, he found the perfect cover story, so that he and his lover could be left in peace... and I was content with that. Nate was a good friend, and he never questioned when I pulled Braydon's sniper rifle from the safe installed beneath our bed... he never questioned the unopened envelope, or the jacket that I stored along with the rifle...

  And when a knife arrived in the mail, with the words _little bird_ inscribed on one side, and _ptichka_ on the other, with a note that I could always come home... Nate didn't question that either. I put the knife into the pocket of Silas King’s jacket, and carefully folded it atop of Braydon’s rifle. My world - my small world, and I locked it away carefully in the safe.

  I cried, and I wanted to go... but Artem would have to wait. I needed to know who my sweet Shaun was, because I realized that no one would accept him if he came out looking like Ji... and I would do whatever it took to protect the life growing in my womb, because no matter what... he was Braydon's. In my heart, it was the truth.

 My water broke in the middle of the night, and I was lucky that Nate was home. He'd been a medic in the army, and we delivered my son there in the bedroom where I slept alone. There was no time for anesthetics, no time for a doctor.

  There was just pain - so much pain - and then crying... and then a baby who looked up at me with his father's eyes.

  With his father's beautiful, blue eyes, and a smile that broke my heart... because it was Braydon's. I hadn't realized how much fear I'd held in my heart that my child would belong to the man who'd raped me, but I was crying over him... holding him close. He looked just like his Father, and on that night, it was like I'd gotten a small piece of my heart back.

 My sweet Shaun Roger, named after Braydon's uncle and my own Pop, and there wasn't a more perfect child in the world.

 

\--

"Sir, mum?" Codsworth voice was full of worry when he came into Shaun's room. Nate and I were talking about taking him down to the park. We'd intended to head out earlier, but a man from Vault-tec had slowed me this morning, insisting that I sign up to participate in the community Vault, no matter how often I told him that the end of the world would be just fine with me, if it rid me of door to door salesmen.

 But now I was playing with Shaun, spinning his mobile and laughing with Nate. He and his lover had recently had a fight, and I wanted to cheer him up. I knew that I'd be going back into service soon... and I'd written to the King household about watching after Shaun while I finished out my service. Artem had been thrilled, and Sil and Nora were honored. I knew that he'd be safe with them, and I knew that I'd finish my service soon, and then come back home to my _family_.

  "What is it, Codsworth?" I pulled the door open, giving Shaun to Nate as I did so. He cooed softly at the baby, and I felt a smile spill across my features - he was really good with him, paternal, though he wasn't his child. The people of Sanctuary Hills had happily pushed that thought aside, small minded and willing to forget that I'd been pregnant before I'd met Nate.

  "I think you should see this - on the television, Miss River. Hurry!" The worried infliction of his tone made me frown, and I spilled into the living room just as the television flashed an image of a bomb dropping - my heart skipped a beat as the nuclear warning siren sounded outside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And finally, the bomb drops. The next chapter will pick up at the beginning of the FO4 game <3 I hope you guys have enjoyed River's background story. The making of a sarcastic bitch with PTSD.


	7. Brave New World

****I was so _cold_. Everything was a blur of memory, from the time that we'd crawled into the Vaults, with Nate still holding Shaun, until I'd woken up. Fragmented pieces came back to me - some bastard with a scar, aiming a gun at Nate... and my sweet friend, valiantly trying to keep my precious child safe.

There was a gunshot, and they took Shaun... and then the man had sneered at the glass that I desperately tried to break...

And then the chill had returned - those Vault-tec Bastards had frozen us instead of saving us.

I knew better than to trust them.

A gust of pressurized air releasing was my alarm, and my body fell hard against the floor... and then I had to crawl out of the damn Vault, a tomb for me and all of my judgmental neighbors. A tomb for my sweet friend Nate.

I promised him that I'd come back as soon as I found Shaun, and I left without looking back.

\--

The world wasn't what I remembered. It was a wasteland, and for a while I sat mutely as the elevator shaft brought me to the upper platform. Sanctuary Hills was in ruins, and I had to close my eyes at the thought that everyone that I'd known, everyone that I cared about wasn't here with me.

When I met Codsworth, milling around the ruined town, and he told me that it had been 200 years, I realized that I would never see them again. I wanted to cry - instead, I went into the house and unlocked the safe that was thankfully still sealed beneath my bed. From inside, I pulled Silas King's jacket, slipping it on carefully. In my boot, I put Artem's knife. With shaking hands, I took Braydon's rifle out of its case, slinging it over my shoulder and loading the inner bag with ammo. His letter, I carefully tucked away - my eyes burned with tears, but I wouldn't let them fall.

Not now. Not yet.

Not until I found my son.

\--

The only thing that Codsworth had been able to tell me was to head towards Concord, that there were people there. My heart ached at not being able to take him with me - he was the only real connection that I had to my life before... that, and the child that I couldn't find. I couldn't think about it. Instead, I pulled the items that represented everything that I'd loved close to me, and tried not to think about the lose of my mother, my father, Silas and Artem... Nora...

I couldn't think about anything, but pressing forward, and doing the best that I could. Concord wasn't that long of a trek, and I needed to get there as quickly as possible. The sooner I got answers the sooner I could get my son back.

 The thought of Shaun's blue eyes, so like his father's, was a driving force that sent me trekking on.  

  I hadn't made it more than across the bridge and down the road from Sanctuary Hills when I ran into a dog - he was sitting patiently at the Red Rocket station as though he'd been waiting for me all along. As soon as I stepped forward, he approached with a low whine spilling from his chest. His eyes looked just and lost as needy as I felt on the inside, and my mouth twisted into a wry smile.

 "All right, mutt. I guess you can come with me." And he harrumphed through his nose, like he'd understood what I said, but we started on our trek to Concord... and I felt a little better for the company.

\--

 What I quickly learned about this _bold new world_ was the fact that people were still assholes. Even dropping a nuclear bomb and wiping out the majority of civilization hadn't managed to give us a clean slate. There were raiders everywhere, and I saw them as I set into the city. Something inside of me was aching, but I pulled the rifle from my shoulder - nothing had ever felt so _right_ in my hands.

 "I love you, babe." I whispered it once, softly under my breath. Braydon didn't know it, but he was saving my life now just as much as he had back in the war... because I never had to step close to the damn raiders. Looking down my scope, a few rapid fires in succession sent  the raucous looters toppling to the ground. I stepped forward and craned my head up to the figure shouting from the balcony.

   _I don't know who you are, but your timing is spot on._

 "I'm no one of consequence," I muttered the answer under my breath, stooping to pick up the gun that he motioned to on the ground. I slung it over my shoulder, keeping my rifle steady, and the 10mm that I'd picked up from the vault tucked carefully at the gun holster I'd fished off of a body just outside of Sanctuary Hills.

 I pushed through the door, and instantly had to jerk back as gunfire hailed me - a low growl spilled from my chest. "I make it through 200 years of cryo for some piece of shit looters to kill me. Fuck that," and when I shifted around the corner again, I had no hesitation in firing. I stared down my scope, and I saw eyes look back at me that reminded me of Ji and Jin - and for the first time in a long time, I wasn't guilty when I pulled the trigger.

  I fought my way slowly up the stairs, and to the top room of the building, where a group of people were waiting for me. I only took a slight detour to pull a power core from an engine - if nothing else, it was good scavenge and sell fodder. The man who stepped forward had a broad smile across his features when he saw me, and a look of relief washing like a wave kissing the shore sweeping through his dark eyes.

 He looked at me like I was some kind of savior - and I nearly recoiled in pain from the glance. I was no one's savior. I hadn't saved Braydon, I couldn't save my son...

  ~~I hadn't been able to save anyone else, and everyone that I cared about was dead now~~ ~~.~~

  I was only half listening when they talked about their plan - something about needing a fusion core to start up some power armor on the roof.

  Power armor just made me think of Nora, and Silas King... and I didn't want to have anything to do with it.

  "If you just need them taken out, there's no reason to ever get _off_ of the roof." I shrugged, pushing past the man who'd introduced himself as Preston Garvey. He caught me gently by the arm, and my eyes narrowed as I spun around.

  "Don't put yourself into danger for us." And there was such concern and... _goodness_ in his voice, that my scathing remark caught on my tongue.

  "I won't. Don't worry," I pulled my rifle around, holding it up with a slight flourish. "I'm the best there is." At least, I had been. He gave me a dubious look, but there was a wash of gratitude behind it.

  "Just be careful." Finally, he relented, letting go of my arm and letting me pass by a smaller woman with dark hair. She scowled up at me, muttering something about just getting myself killed. Her, I wanted to snarl at, but I had to crane my neck up to look at her, and I didn't have time for biting remarks right now.

  "Stay here, boy." I pat the dog that I'd picked up between his soft ears, smiling at him. Another man stepped forward, kneeling in his overalls and beaming up at me with a genuine smile.

  "Don't worry," Preston had called him Sturges, and he seemed so warm. "I'll take care of him while you take care of _them_ ." And there wasn't doubt in his voice that I'd manage to fulfill that duty. I gave him a small smile and turned, making my way to the rooftop.   
  I could already hear the obnoxious sound of the raiders, shouting, raucous and freely declaring what they'd do one they finally caught the group. I was careful as I moved - the power armor stood tall and immobile in front of me, and there was a part of me that knew I was being silly for not entering it... but I wasn't going to - I couldn't. I'd never gotten into the damn suit, and I wasn't going to start now. Instead, I shifted forward slowly on the roof, keeping my body low and silently cursing the bright blue of the Vaultsuit that I still wore for being so damn visible.

  There was a man on the roof, but his muddy eyes didn't detect me, even in my bright suit that was painted like a yellow target on my back. My eyes swept the layout below me; the best thing that you could do when fighting a group was find and eliminate their leader. I noticed that people tended to scatter and panic if their leader was taken away in a wash of blood and bone.

  It wasn't that hard to peg which one of the Raiders was shouting orders the loudest, and I lined my shot up with his head with ease. The day wasn't windy, and he wasn't at such a distance that I needed to calculate for bullet descent. My scope was enough - Braydon's scope.

  It was like he was still here, telling me where to aim. Where to shoot.

  I pulled the trigger, and a roar of shouts erupted from below as the man fell dead to the ground. It only took the man on the roof a few moments to realize where the shot had come from, but I'd already loaded another bullet and taken aim by the time he turned to squeeze return fire from his gun. He shouted, and I realized that I'd just missed the heart - he'd bleed out before he had a chance to really curse my name. Not that he knew my name, though I heard him shout out a colorful substitute.

 It was enough to alert the rest of the group as to where I was, and I had to roll quickly out of the way. The bright blue suit was proving the bane of my existence, just as I'd thought it would... because they didn't have trouble locating my position and taking aim. Thankfully, the hailing rain of bullets wasn't really aimed. It was just a general guess, something almost akin to a spray and pray. I took a breath, counting the beats of my heart as it thundered rapidly in my chest.

  For the first time since I'd woken up, my heart was thundering - beating rapid and in my throat...

  For the first time, I felt _alive._

  It was a dangerous feeling, but it was something that I could hold on to. I twisted when there was a lull in bullets, shifting to let the sniper rifle take another quick shot, bringing another one of the raiders down for the count. It was like shooting fish in a barrel, though I'd never really heard of fish shooting back.

  "Get down here, you fucking bitch. Are you too much of a coward?" One voice snarled out, sounding furious that I was getting the better of them. I actually heard him _growl_ when I laughed aloud before responding.

  "What kind of an idiot would I be to give up the high ground. You should just get the fuck out of here before I do to you what I did to your boss. These people are under _my_ protection." And my heart gave a leap in my throat at the words that had spilled from my mouth. My protection - even if I didn't want to face them again after this little act of heroism, because I knew that I wouldn't be able to handle their gratitude. My presence alone could be enough... and I could always talk myself into facing the music later.

  "Fuck you, cunt. When we get up there, you'll see that no _protection_ exists in the Commonwealth." The double meaning was clear... and the threat of assault made me see red.

  I stood without thought or question, and I raised my rifle to the sound of his voice. My aim wasn't perfect, by any means. But it was good enough, and I saw it catch him in the shoulder, spinning his body with the impact and pain of it. He shouted out, calling me a fucking whore and a few other colorful terms, and I let out a barking laugh. I pulled the trigger again, and he fell.

  What I didn't expect was the _ground to shake_ . From behind the raiders, the cement was _moving_ . It took me a second to realize that it wasn't the road, but a metal doorway that led to tunnels below... and from inside of it, a _monster_ burst. I'd never seen anything like it, and I was petrified for the first few moments that it emerged. Those moments were more than enough for it to shift forward with a roar that rocked to my very core - I could feel it tremble to my bones, only lending to the way that I stayed frozen like a rabbit in the sights of a predator.

  It made quick work of the men in front of it, and suddenly they weren't concerned with firing at the woman on the top of the roof. Though I wasn't doing it to help them, after I finally managed to catch my breath... I realized that I needed to do _something_ about the monster on the street. What if it managed to tear into the museum? I wasn't going to let anything happen to the people inside - I'd already promised it to myself, and it was something that I was damn well intending to keep.

  I shifted forward, aiming my rifle at its head. I squeezed off a bullet... and frowned.

  It roared, picking up the last raider and flinging him hard enough against a building that I heard the crunch even from the distance... its eyes turned up towards me, and I could see a cruel kind of intelligence there - enough that it _knew_ where its enemy was coming from.

  "Well, fuck me."

   Suddenly, the fact that the minigun didn’t have the finesse of my chosen weapon was completely outweighed by the fact that it might be the only thing with enough stopping force to kill the beast before it ripped the building apart in an attempt to get at me. I scrambled back, half crawling, half running to the power armor.

  I didn’t want to get into it, but another roar of fury told me that wishing in one hand and shitting in the other would just leave you with a steaming pile.  

  Since the last thing that I wanted was to have messy fingers, I let out a small growl and crammed the fusion core into the back of the power armor. I heard a small whir, a sign that the mechanical bits inside of the armor were purring to life. I didn't have time to go over the small amount of power armor training that I'd gotten while in service - I didn't have time for anything, other than to wrench the back of it open and clamber inside; though, I did note that it smelled musty and acrid, like sweat.

  It only took me a few seconds to get arranged in the power armor, sliding my rifle home in a safe space of the framework as I did so. A small groan spilled from my chest. I think that part of the reason that I hated the damn metal tin can so much was the fact that it wasn't really designed for people of my stature. The frame actually had to adjust itself so that it would fit to my body, and that took precious seconds that I simply didn't have to give. Another furious roar spilled through the air, and I heard the giant claws from the creature scraping against the wall.

Worse, I heard screams from inside of the building, and I knew that Preston and the others had heard the beast. I couldn't let it tear through them to get to me. I jerked forward before the armor was even ready, ripping the minigun from the Vertibird as I went. I mashed my finger on the trigger before I'd even stepped to the side of the wall, and I took off at a run and jumped without thinking - I was flying through the air and crashing towards the ground when the mini-gun started to fire... and I turned it straight to the face of the beast as I did so.

 I landed with a thud, glad for the shock absorption that the power armor had to offer. If nothing else, it was worth crawling into for that reason alone. The beast turned, and I could see its face snarling, sharp teeth protruding from its mouth. Worse, though, were the claws, painted crimson with Raider's blood, that swiped at me. I fell back, and let the mini-gun cut a line across the things chest.

 The fact that it didn't go down right away terrified me. The fact that it roared and dove towards me terrified me even more.

  I felt the impact of its body slam against me, even through the power armor. It ached along my body in a long line that tore from its claws at my torso to the tip of my fingers... but I never stopped squeezing the trigger of the minigun.

 It was satisfying, the way that the beasts body danced above me - less satisfying was the fact that its claws were doing their best to tear through my armor. I could feel them wrenching at me, and I knew that the frame could only do so much by way of protection before it was completely ripped away, and left me ripped with it.

 A low groan spilled from my chest - it tore at my arm again, and I felt the muscle wrench... but the mini-gun trigger stayed pressed down, though the metal glowed hot and red under the strain of firing so many bullets. My only problem was, I wasn't sure how many bullets were _left_ , and the creature was still tearing furiously at my power armor. My only indication that I was doing anything akin to damage was the spattering of blood that was coating along the helmet of my tin can.

  Another roar poured from its chest, and it lifted its claw high.

  I shifted the gun upward, aiming for the center of its body - I could only hope that whatever mutated biology it had, its heart was still in something of the same location. The firing of the gun was loud, and the creature shrieked above me, and I screamed right along with it because its claw found the helmet of my armor and tore it roughly from my face - a jagged burn ripped against my brow, metal catching flesh, but I ignored it and continued to scream.

  The gun clicked empty, and for just a moment, the world froze. I knew I was going to die, if it had the strength left to fight... and for a moment, I thought it did. Through the haze of blood pouring into my gaze, I could see it trying to summon the strength. My legs stretched out, kicking it hard in the stomach... and it toppled over.

  Shallow breathing, still snarling... but I managed to scramble back and pull my rifle out again. This time when I took aim, it was at a black eye that stared at me with liquid fury.

  This time when I pulled the trigger, it stopped moving.

  For a moment, I simply stood there staring, my eyes wide at the sight of the monster laying dead against the broken concrete. I stepped out of the armor after a moment, leaving the fusion core inside of it. Perhaps Preston and the others could use it - but I couldn't stay here. I was bleeding, and the wound above my eye wasn't stopping... I needed to get myself patched up, and I needed to do it without the worried eyes of the people that I'd just saved. I wasn't sure where I was going to go... but I knew, for the moment, I couldn't face them.

  I stepped to the museum and opened the door. A low, sharp whistle, and after a moment I heard Dogmeat scrambling towards me. Voices followed him - voices already calling for me, asking if I was okay. Asking if it was safe.

  When my canine companion came to my side, I turned on my heel and headed south. Maybe it was cowardice, that kept me from accepting their heroes welcome, or maybe it was the simple guilt at the fact that I was still here. Still alive.

 Whatever it was, I couldn't get tangled up in all of this - I needed to find my son.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I think the next chapter will involve the Cambridge Police Station. I had to figure out a way to set it up so that River wasn't led straight to Diamond City, or she'd honestly not stop til she got to the Institute. I hope you guys are still enjoying! I think this has 1-2 more parts before the Maxson story will pick up/carry along beside it.


	8. Ghosts

My Pipboy let out a small bleep, and Dogmeat whined in answer. I frowned, flipping the screen on. It took me a second to find the source of the noise - on the far end of the menu, I had the option to listen to Radio stations. I hadn't bothered, because there was no reason to give away my position with music. However, there was another option now - a distress signal.

I frowned at the screen, but my fingers carefully flicked the button anyway, activating the station. I listened carefully, turning the words over in my mind.

 If nothing else, it was clear that there were people at the Cambridge Police Station. Maybe if I helped them, they'd return the favor? It was my hope when I veered off course, follow the indicator on my Pipboy. It was a sweet piece of technology - I knew that we'd had things like this during the war, but I'd never had the necessity of using it. I'd always known exactly where my target was, and exactly where I was going, down to the hill that we'd set up on.

 This was different though - I knew the layout of Boston, but I had no idea what the world was  _ like _ now, or where anything was. Thankfully, I'd been to the Cambridge Police Station a few times, at least to drive by it. I had an idea of where I was going, and my training told me that I couldn't go in through the front. If there was some kind of issue, it would be better for me to scope out the problem and assess the situation before I dove in head first.

  It was that type of logic that had kept me alive through the war - and it  _ usually worked. _

  I could hear the scuffle of fighting before I was within visual range of the police station - shouted orders, the firing of rifles. My body twitched in memory of the battlefield, my breath trying to force its way through suddenly aching lungs. It was strange - I hadn't reacted this way in Concord, but suddenly, it was hard for me to take another step. Perhaps it was the shouted commands, the organized voice that seemed so determined to lead his people. It rang through me, and I had to force myself to step forward...

  But once I took that first step, I was suddenly  _ running.  _

  I rounded the corner and pulled my rifle out in one fluid motion - it only took me a second to take in the perimeter. A man in power armor was trying to fend against more creatures than I could count, and though his efforts were valiant, I could see the sweat dripping from his brow and the concern painted across his face. I saw a fallen man against the wall, and a woman only half paying attention to the things that crept forever closer. Their mouths were an open snarl, and rotten and broken teeth tried to tear at the metal that was the man's only protection. He caught me moving out of the corner of his eye, but he didn't have time to turn his full attention to me. I shifted upward, taking out my pistol and holding it in my right hand while keeping my rifle steady with my left. I had to clear a path to the stairway above, because I needed the upper ground on the creatures. They grabbed for me, and I unloaded the clip of the pistol into two of them, sending them crashing to the ground as I took the stairs two at a time.

 The sight of a dead body met my eyes. I frowned - clearly, I should have gotten here earlier... but I'd been distracted. A small frown spilled my lips, but I didn't have time to mourn the fallen soldier. I turned instead, aiming my rifle out into the open. I had to trust that the man in the armor could take care of the ones in front of him, and I'd make sure that no others flooded in.

  At least, I'd try.

  I had to force myself not to look at the dead man at my feet, because I knew if I glanced down, it would be Braydon's face that I saw. I couldn't do that. I couldn't let myself get distracted like that.

  Instead, I focused down the sights of my scope and let the small war begin.

 

\--

 

  It was over within ten minutes. The trickle of the beasts had slowed to a near still, and I was able to clamber down to the man in the power armor. He was still slicked with sweat, and he turned his eyes to me as I approached him, rifle slung once more over my shoulder but pistol carefully still in my hand, in case another beast decided to spring on us.

  "Thanks for the assistance, civilian, but what's your business here?" His voice was curt, clipped, and I could almost hear the strain behind it.

  However, I  _ wasn't  _ a civilian. I frowned at him, putting my free arm on my hip. "Who are you calling civilian, soldier?" Snappy, curt, and he had the grace to look ashamed. His eyes shifted down to my jacket instead, and I realized a moment before he spoke what he was looking at.

  "Apologies, King?" He paused, and I twitched at the name, "What's your rank."

  "No, I'm not-, I..." I frowned again, feeling flustered and upset all at once. "My name is Malcolm - Lieutenant Malcolm." I flinched again at the name, because I hadn't heard my rank in so long... and I didn't really feel like I deserved it. I frowned again, "But that was a long time ago. The point is, I heard you had an infestation problem. Hell," I smirked, and I saw the disapproval at my candid behavior flash across his visage. "You can consider me the exterminator, for all it matters. The point is, I heard your distress signal and came to help.

  For a moment, he looked me over. I saw the judgement in his gaze, and I found myself flustered under his scrutiny. Honestly, he didn't have a leg to stand on - from what I could tell, he hand his outfit would have been in deep shit if I hadn't come to help. I think, finally, he realized that, too.

  "My name is Paladin Danse, of the Brotherhood of Steel." I saw the way he drew himself up when he spoke - I'd seen it in the people of the army before, when they were proud of their position, their rank, their service. He looked me over again, and I saw the way that his eyes lingered on the blue suit beneath my jacket. It just made me pull the fabric that had gotten me called  _ King  _ all the tighter around my frame. "Other than our distress signal, what's your business here, soldier?" No rank, but it was better than him calling me civilian.

  I didn't know how much I really wanted to tell him; if he was a part of some military outfit, they might have been exactly what I needed to find Shaun. I didn't have a clue as to where to look, or who to ask. I frowned and thought it over, and I could see impatience brewing behind his light brown gaze - just because he had a pretty face, it didn't mean that I'd take any shit from him. Finally, I decided to answer. "I'm looking for answers." And then, with a small breath, I decided that in this situation, blunt honesty was the best I could do. "I came out of the Vault in Sanctuary Hills, and nothing is how I left it." I saw shock pour through his gaze, the softness of pity quickly chased away by a military facade. "Someone  _ took _ a member of my family from me, and I want him back." I finally came to my point, and craned my head back so that I could look him straight in the eyes.

  He stared at me, and for a moment, I think he was turning over everything that I'd said. Finally, Danse nodded. "It takes courage to admit your past, let alone the fact that you need help." A small measure of guilt washed over his features, and I didn't like it one bit. "I'm afraid that we've lost contact with our base, however. I don't know what kind of assistance we could offer you while--"

  "Actually, Paladin Danse." The voice made me turn, it was the woman to our left, who had been huddled over her wounded comrade. "I might have a solution to that problem."

  I turned in unison with the Power Armor clad man - if they were willing to offer me aid, I was willing to do just about anything to earn it.

 

\--

 We'd cleared the location and retrieved the piece that Scribe Haylen needed to contact their long, lost base. I had to say, being introduced to the concept of synths and the Institute didn't come to me as shockingly as it should have. There was a part of me that seemed to be numbing out to the insanity of the Commonwealth. Instead, I sat and listened as Paladin Danse put a name to some of the enemies that I'd seen.

  Ghouls. Gen 2 synths. Molerats. Super Mutants. A place called the Institute had a penchant for kidnapping people of the Commonwealth - I knew where I wanted to turn my attention.

  Apparently the world was a  _ very  _ different place than when I'd gone into the Vault, and the Chinese were no longer the problem.

  It was as we were headed back to the Cambridge Police Station that Danse suddenly turned. It was like a ripple of thought passed across his features. "Malcolm," and for a moment, my body gave a small twitch. The command in his tone reminded me of Braydon, and it had been  _ nice _ to work with someone again, to feel like another person had your back. When we'd been fighting the machines inside, Danse had stood tall and strong, letting me kneel behind his Power Armor to reload when necessary, having my ten when I scouted forward.

  It felt  _ natural _ , and a part of me hated myself because I let it. Another part of me was desperate to keep hold of the feeling for as long as I could. This was why I'd stepped away from Preston's group... and this was why I couldn't step away from Danse when he started speaking.

  "First of all, I have something for you." He pulled the rifle that he'd been using forward, holding it out to me. "It's my own, modded version of the standard Brotherhood of Steel rifle. You deserve it for the work you put in there." And even to me, he sounded pleasantly surprised. I wondered, had he underestimated me like everyone else, because of my size, because of my snarky mouth?

  "Don't you need that?" I didn't want to take the gun. My fingers gripped tight to the sniper rifle that I held instead, my body threatening to tremor. Danse looked me over once, carefully.  

  "Consider it a segway into my next point." He pressed the rifle forward, and I could do nothing but take it. It was still hot from firing, and the grip of his hands... and I frowned, because it felt natural in my fingers. I knew that I couldn't use a sniper rifle all of the time - I'd intended to pick up another weapon... but...

   "And what's that point?" I knew that I sounded sharper than I should have, and I wondered if he'd seen other soldiers with haunted eyes before. From the way that he politely ignored my breath coming just a bit harder, I had a feeling that he had.

  "You handled yourself well in there - better than I expected, in all honest. You said that you're looking for something, and it seems like you need somewhere to belong." His voice grew warmer, and I could tell that he had conviction in his words. "The Brotherhood of Steel needs people with a steady aim. I can't guarantee your position, but if you're willing, I'll vouch for you to join our ranks."

 I teetered back and forth - I had no intention, when I came out of the Vault, of joining up with another military crew immediately. But there was something natural about it, and there was something warm in Danse's gaze, even though his professionalism and rank dripped off of him - he really seemed to care about his crew.

 I knew what my inevitable answer was going to be, even as I spoke. "I don't know, tell me a bit more about your  _ Brotherhood. _ " And tell me how you can help me to find Shaun.... because, in the end, that was my main objective. Danse's eyes sparked, as though I'd asked him his favorite question.

  The barely masked boyish smile was only a little cute.

 

\--

 

 It seemed like a big part of being in the Brotherhood of Steel was proving that I was worthy of the position. Honestly, I wasn't much for proving myself, and Paladin Danse quickly realized what it had only taken my base commanders a few weeks to ascertain - River Wren Malcolm didn't play well with others.

 I slept at the police station - well, as much as I could sleep. I quickly realized that every time I closed my eyes, I had a flash of faces that I'd failed to save, and haunting echoes of a past that I could never see again. insomnia was something that I was quickly becoming acquainted with, and the headaches that came with it were only just able to be dulled out. It was during one of the nights that I'd woken myself with a small shout, and visions of Braydon's lifeless face still chased in a circle with Ji's cold eyes that I realized something.

  Paladin Danse, for all of his intense strength, seemed to suffer from the same malady as I did.

  I'd gone on a search for some whiskey that I'd brought back from a Super Mutant camp that I'd cleared - apparently Knight Rhys had a hard on for sending me out to clear those - only to find the larger man nursing the bottle. I'd only been here a week, but I'd yet to see Danse step out of the Power Armor that he wore... so the fact that I caught him sitting in the flight suit that was the Brotherhood of Steel uniform (one that I refused to put on), was almost shocking.

 I just stood there in silence for a moment, the jacket that I still wore hugged tight around my frame. My rifle was carefully put away beside my cot, though the knife that Artem had given me was carefully tucked into a strap I'd made to stay around my leg .I wasn't going anywhere in this wasteland unarmed.

  Danse was staring at the empty glass in front of him, and by the look in his soft brown eyes, he'd filled it more than once. I shouldn't have recognized the expression - I wished that I didn't... but I knew the look on his visage; I knew it, because I'd seen it on my own face, in the mirror.

  I must have made some kind of noise, because he suddenly jerked his gaze upward. His cheeks flushed in embarrassment, but he tried to pull his decorum and authority up and around him like a cloak.

  "Initiate, you should be resting. We have an early run to--" I stepped forward, holding my hand up and interrupting him.

  "I just wanted to get in on that whiskey, Paladin." And I sat at the table without being invited, pulling his cup to me and pouring myself a shot before downing it. The liquid burned along the back of my tongue and into my chest, settling home in my stomach and promising to chase away the chilling specters of death that threatened my dreams and sanity. Danse looked me over carefully, dark brows knitting together, his lips pulling into a frown...

  But I think he recognized the hollow expression in my eyes, because he didn't tell me to leave, and he didn't get up. Instead, he pulled the glass back, poured another shot and knocked it back. He quickly refilled the cylinder and passed it back to me without saying anything. We settled into a cool, comforting silence of two people who were too busy having conversations with ghosts to speak aloud. 

  Honestly? It was perfect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, River is with the BoS. Next chapter, Maxson!


	9. Duet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was initially going to include Maxson, but I realized that it was getting too long to post as a single piece. So, I found a good portion and split it up - you'll be getting the next part either tonight, or tomorrow! And guaranteed after the next chapter, I'm going to pick up on the POV story with Maxson (A God Amongst Men) to run alongside this one. So. I'm really excited. Expected the next chapter/a Maxson fic come tomorrow!

 There was something almost soothing about the pattern that I fell into at the Cambridge Police Station. I was assigned a new location to clear out every few days, and every few days, I'd return to sleep on my cot. Each night, my dreams would be plagued with memories from my past, mixed and intermingling with the horrific images of this apocalyptic future; the beasts that took Braydon from me were Super Mutants with Ji's eyes.

 After the first three times that I woke up and found Danse sitting and nursing a drink, I found him with two cups out instead of one. He silently passed the second to me, already filled with a shot... and there was a measure of peace in knowing that I could depend on his stoic and silent frame to be waiting for me. We never really spoke, and we certainly didn't speak about what demons had us at the bottle... but there was comfort in knowing that he'd be there, waiting for me.

 There was an odd sense of comradery in shared trauma. 

 I'd been at the Police Station for nearly a month, and I could almost ignore the guilt in my chest from not finding Shaun already - Paladin Danse assured me that soon, we would be contacted by the Elder of their division of the Brotherhood of Steel, and then he could put in a word for me about assistance. From what I'd heard of the Institute, we were both sure that they were the people who had taken Shaun, so it seemed that my prerogative and the desires of the Brotherhood of Steel intermingled. Still, there was a sense of listless helplessness in just waiting around and sitting on my hands - I could only console myself with the fact that I was taking out dangers to the people of the Commonwealth. If I couldn't have my son, I could work on making the world that I was going to bring him to a safer place.

  It was  _ almost _ enough to make me forget my guilt. But almost never really counted.

  Danse had a penchant for giving me a disapproving look every time I came back from a mission weighted down with loot - there were days when I had to trudge back one slow footstep at a time... but I wasn't going to leave anything that could prove useful behind. I would have rather made Danse a little disappointed than to have needed something later and found myself lacking. I ribbed him gently about having a hatred for tin, when he was surrounded in it, and he had the grace to blush, when it was just the two of us. My casual tone was unacceptable in front of Rhys and Haylen, though I still delivered it without fail. He'd call me on it then, with a disapproving gaze, and a lecture about how the Brotherhood of Steel was a house built upon rank and respect, and the ability to follow orders.

 There was something about his desire to prove that he was the best that he could be, that he bled Steel and Brotherhood that was almost charming, though I could see that he was blindly following their rules without thinking. Haylen, I got the feeling, didn't have the same conviction as Danse. We'd spoken a few times on our own, when Rhys was out, and Danse was busy patrolling the perimeter or working on his Power Armor. He didn't like for anyone to be in the area when he was doing it - I had to wonder if I was the only one who'd seen him out of the metal contraption. He certainly guarded his time working on it like it was a precious thing.

  Haylen's voice for the Brotherhood was wary, and she told me about her image of what the Brotherhood could be. From the way that she spoke, it sounded like they weren't always fulfilling that image, but she wouldn't delve into the details. Like a good soldier, even if she wasn't completely behind the army that she was supporting, she was still loyal to their cause.

  I respected her for it.

  Rhys, on the other hand, I had no respect for. He was my favorite target for teasing, and the easiest person in the Police Station to make uncomfortable. He seemed furious that Danse was willing to take me in off of the streets without any credentials, and assured of the fact that someone who came from a Vault wasn't going to be an asset to the Brotherhood of Steel. I had a feeling that he kept sending me to the mutant dens that he did in an attempt to make sure that I wasn't going to come back; he certainly seemed shocked every time I showed my face.

  I got into the habit of blowing kisses at him when I went out the door. Rhys turned crimson. Haylen frowned.

  What surprised me was the fact that Danse's dark brows knit together in annoyance at the gesture. It wasn't as though I was aiming it at him, but then again... it seemed like Rhys had some kind of hero worship for Danse, a Paladin in the Brotherhood, and apparently their Elder's right-hand man. I was a little nervous about meeting this  _ Elder _ \- though, not for the reasons that a normal person would have been.

  The fact of the matter was, either we were going to get along like General King and I had, or he was going to hate me like my first Base Commander. It seemed like authority figures and I had no in between... and there was a small voice in my head that told me I was in dire threat of the latter happening.

  I didn't want to change my personality, but I would at least try to reel it in, if it meant that I had an entire military force backing me up on the search for my son.

 I knew that I  _ could  _ behave myself. But I  _ also _ knew that I'd have a damn hard time of it if their elder acted more like Rhys than Danse.

  Danse... I couldn't quite put a finger on. There was something about him that pulled at my attention... something behind his light brown eyes, that crept out later in the night when we'd had a few drinks. I'd found myself with words on the tip of my tongue quite often, but I swallowed them down before they came out - the thing was, sometimes, when I glanced up, I noticed Danse with the same expression on his features.

  I didn't care - I wasn't really willing to get close to  _ anyone _ in this new world. I'd already tasted the pain of loss multiple times. I wasn't going to willingly dive into it again. Even so, I found myself  _ caring  _ about my new little family, and I knew that I was in a damned if you do, damned if you don't kind of situation.

  I could leave, and cut myself off from their attentions, but that would also cut me off from the help that Danse seemed convinced their Elder could provide. Or... I could stay.

  Both options seemed far more painful than they should have been, and I realized that I was pretty much fucked no matter what I did.

  I don't know why, but I decided to stay. I think it just felt good to be a part of  _ something _ . It was better than aimlessly wandering without any answers.

~~ It was better than being alone . ~~

  Just because I knew that it was the truth, it didn't mean that I was willing to accept it. I let out a small sigh as I heard Danse calling my name - it sounded official. It sounded like he was going to send me out on another mission, another run.

   At least I could get my mind off of things.

  "Malcolm, when the Paladin calls for you, you should answer." Rhys voice was a scathing thing, and we were out of earshot of Danse, so I arched my brow.

  "Maybe he just likes to shout my name, Rhysie. Think of that one." And I left him with an open mouth and a face full of fury. It was almost enough to make me feel better, the way that Rhys seemed to flustered at my suggestion that Danse and I were doing anything at all salacious.

  Almost.

  I spilled into the front of the police station, and I immediately had a inkling as to why Danse had called me in. There was a small stack of guns, scavenge, and the other things that I'd been bringing in during my missions. Danse's eyes were cool and disapproving, and I had the grace to look a little sheepish. When you put it all into one place, sure it looked like a  _ lot _ .

  "I don't suppose that you're congratulating me on how much scavenge and supplies I've brought in?" I tried to beam brilliantly at him, and I saw the look of disapproval deepen in his gaze. I almost wanted to shrink down, but I walked up to him instead, tilting my head back so that I could meet his gaze. After all, there had never been a nerve in my body that was willing to be afraid of someone.

  I wasn't going to start with Paladin Danse, even though he was intimidating enough, certainly - serious, grave, tall,  _ handsome. _

  And I pushed that last thought hard out of the back of my mind, a small scowl spilling across my lips. Our late night drinking had done something quite terrible - it was making me feel  _ close _ to him. I wasn't about to go there - not now. Not ever. I knew that my body hadn't been getting the attentions that it had before, and I was a red blooded american just like anyone else. Anyone who said that women didn't have the same needs as men clearly had no idea what they were talking about. But I wasn't going to go there.

  Just no. No.

  Instead, I picked up one of the guns from the pile, looking it over. "They were all in working order when I brought them in, or I put them to a scrap bench to get the useable parts." At least that was in good defense. Danse continued to look over me with a small shake of his head. Finally, he spoke.

  "I've sorted through what you brought in - about 20% of it will go back to the Prydwen when it gets here. The rest of this junk needs to be taken to Diamond City, we need to get as many supplies as we can for the ship, and as many caps as we can carry for all of this." I stared at it, and my eyes widened.

  "Where's Diamond City?" I hadn't heard of that, and my heart leapt in excitement at the sudden prospect. Maybe... just maybe... there would be some answers there. I'd been making reasons in my mind to send Rhys out to fetch caps for my supplies, but I was suddenly  _ very  _ eager to make the run myself.

  "It's to the south. And you aren't going to be able to take all of this alone." Danse seemed a bit annoyed at what he was about to say, but he turned his gaze to the pile in front of him. "Power Armor gives me the capability to carry an inhuman amount of weight... so I'll be making a trip with you - we're going to get this scavenged, scrapped and sold as quickly as possible. It's a routine run."

  I grinned up at him. "You're going to come on a mission with me, eh? That's new."

  "Someone has to stop you from coming back with more garbage than you left with." His tone sounded so disapproving, but there was some emotion behind his gaze that wasn't altogether fury. I beamed up at him, and I could feel it reaching my eyes. I think it was the fact that I was giving him a genuine smile for the first time that caught him off guard. It thawed some of the ice in his gaze, and he finally rolled his eyes at me.

  "Get some packs from storage. We aren't going to carry this all in our arms. Tell Rhys that I need to speak with him, while you're at it." I had to bite back a chuckle. Oh, after what I'd said to Rhys, I had a feeling that this wasn't going to go over well with the Knight.

  Mores the better. Today was going to be one of those good days. I could feel it. And maybe... maybe, once we got to Diamond City, I could get a few answers about Shaun. After all, the Brotherhood of Steel was supposed to help, but it never hurt for me to do a little research on the side.

  My eyes slipped back to Danse's imposing figure, the tall man looking at the pile of my scavenge in irritation. I wasn't sure how  _ he  _ would feel about me taking time to ask some questions, but I'd figure it out once we got there.

  For now, I had a certain Knight to tease, and I was going to enjoy his furious gaze for all that it was worth.

 

\--

 

  For a while, Danse was silent while we walked. He was laden down with multiple bags, and I had to step forward to take point. He could still shoot his rifle, but he didn't seem too pleased about the fact that his arms were somewhat overburdened with the bags.

  After a few minutes, however, the Paladin turned his gaze to me and started to talk. At first, he spoke about the Brotherhood, their mission, their desires for the Commonwealth. Slowly, his speech deteriorated into what the world had been, in his opinion before, what the world could be if they were given the chance to make a difference.

  From everything that I'd heard of the Brotherhood, I wasn't sure that Danse was completely on the same page as his factions motto, but I wasn't going to say anything about it. I could  _ see  _ how much he cared about the people of the Commonwealth, the world that I wanted to bring my son back to. There was something warming about it; it was nice to know that the man who stepped out of the armor existed, even while he was in it.

  "You know, the world wasn't such a great place when I went under, either." I finally spoke up, and he actually snapped rapt attention to me. I'd been keeping mostly to myself, and I certainly hadn't talked to him about anything prewar. He barely knew about Shaun, about the reason that I was so willing and eager to join up with the Brotherhood.

  He actually bit his full lower lip, and I had a small moment to suppress the smile that was threatening me. But I didn't, because I didn't know how much it cost him to let me see this part of him, even if it was just excitement. I wasn't going to spurn it - we'd spent so many nights in silence, and now that he wasn't being quiet anymore, I was more than willing to learn a little about him. We were in safe territory right now, and I was willing to start here.

 "Tell me about where you grew up." Finally, he settled in his question, and I was a bit shocked. I was expecting a question about prewar technology, about cars, or planes, or the bombs... maybe even the war. But instead...

  "Are you sure? That's not exactly the most interesting topic." I heard the sarcastic laughter in my voice, but he quickly shook his head.

  "You have an accent that I've never heard in the Commonwealth - I can attribute it in part to the gap in time, but... you sound... different." And I knew that my drawl sometimes spilled out in my voice - I thought I'd trained it out completely. The fact that he could still catch it was enough to make me blush, almost.

  "Well, I hate to disappoint you, but I came from a small town. I could regale you with tales about the woods, and hunting, and fishing," I shrugged, letting my eyes sweep out in front of us. Just thinking about it brought into stark awareness the fact that the world was a completely different place from the one in which I'd grown up. I didn't want to think about what my house looked like now, and I didn't want to feel the painful squeeze in my heart when I thought of my parents, who wouldn't have had the ability to survive the bombs any more than the military family that had adopted me. I let out a small sound that was nearly a strangled whimper.

 Danse, of course, had the decency to ignore it.

 "I'm interested." Two words, soft, and they meant more to me than I realized. After a moment, I took a deep breath and nodded. I wasn't very eloquent with my words, and I'd never been creative enough to be a writer or anything of the sort... but I was going to do my best to paint Danse an image of a world that was all  _ green _ .

 

\--

 

Diamond City turned out to be and old baseball field, converted into a safe haven. I was shocked that they'd managed to fortify it so much. I was even more shocked at the fact that Danse seemed so melancholy upon approaching it.

  "Just look at this, Malcolm," His voice was soft. We'd spent the entire afternoon talking about the world that I'd come from, how green the grass was, how hot the summers were. Danse seemed completely entranced with the thought of a green world - I was wondering if I gave him fuel for better dreams than what kept him up at night.

  But as we approached the City, our chatter cut down. There were mutants and ghouls to defend against, as well as the occasional wild dog. More than that though, it was Danse's mood - his attitude towards the entire thing. He seemed completely displeasured with the fact that Diamond City existed at all... and only now was he letting in me in why. 

  "What's wrong, Paladin?" I had to prompt him, because I could see him stewing on his thoughts and emotions. When he turned his hues to me, they were blazing with passion.

  "They're huddled behind their walls when there are perfectly good buildings all around that could be restored, that could house families. There could be children running the streets, instead of turrets and soldiers." I was taken aback by the drive in his voice, the desire to make a chance that I could sense coming off of him in a near palpable wave of determination and fire.

  He really wanted to make a difference, and I could tell by his conviction that he really and truly thought that he could.

  That the Brotherhood could.

  It made me feel just a little better about joining up with an army outfit that I hadn't really known anything about. If Danse truly thought they could make such a difference, it couldn't be that bad.

  As we turned to approach the entryway, I heard shouts, shots. My body tensed for just a moment... and I noticed that Danse's did as well, though it was harder to detect inside of his power armor. We didn't have to say anything to one another; there was a glance between us, and then we both took off running in the direction of the gunfire as quickly as we could, raising our own weapons in defense. 

  It only took a second to locate the sound of the gunfire, and only another second for Danse and I to rush forward. Men dressed in light armor were firing on a group of Super Mutants, and by the looks of their wounded bodies, I could tell that they weren't exactly doing the best. It was clear that they needed help. I kept the sniper rifle at my back, and pulled out the gun that Danse had given me instead. We advanced as a unit, and stepped in front of the guards without hesitation or self-preservation.

  "Be careful, they have--" One of the guards tried to speak, but it only lasted for a moment before the warning became a physical thing. Mutant hounds spilled from the house, their master's vicious calls spurning them onward. I looked to Danse for just a moment, and there was a grin of savage joy on his face.

 It took me a moment to realize that it echoed perfectly on my own; this was a moment when I could use my skills, I could make a difference... and I could make the ache inside of me disappear for a moment under a wash of savagery and rage.

  In that moment, the Paladin and I danced a duet of bloodshed, slaughter, and shared pain. 

  In that moment, our hearts beat in sync.


	10. Old Familiar Faces

 I couldn't believe how things had transpired - it was odd, but Danse was easier to convince than I'd imagined. It probably had something to do with the tears that had sprang into my eyes, when they'd mentioned that there was a detective who could probably help me out. I'd run off to talk to him while Danse was bartering with Arturo, the weapon's man in the center of Diamond City...

 Only to find that he was missing once we'd found him. I promised his secretary that I'd find him, and I came back to Danse with the knowledge of that promise hanging thick in my mind, because I knew that he wasn't going to be interested. He'd wanted to get back to the police station as quickly as possible, and I was trying to figure out my argument for exactly why we should go after the detective when I approached him.

  His bags were only slightly full this time, and I could tell that the container was no longer filled with weaponry and pieces of junk. Something told me it was ammo. There was a gentle clink in one of the other bags that sounded like bottlecaps. If I'd been in a better mood, I would have told him that _clearly_ my junk was worth more than just a toss... but I wasn't in the mood, and I think that he could tell that as I approached.

  "Malcolm?" I frowned as he called my name, because I knew that it wasn't going to do me a damn bit of good. He was stern, and even though I felt _something_ between us, I wasn't sure what that something was, I wasn't willing to look at it closely enough to find out, and I had a feeling that Danse wouldn't welcome it any more than I did.

  Instead, I stepped up to him and tried to steel my gaze, put a firm expression across my visage. "I heard news about someone who could help me."

  His expression instantly turned wary. "But?" he knew, he could tell from the simple infliction of my voice that there was a _but_ coming along with the conversation.

  "But he's not here - he's apparently gone missing-"

  "Malcolm, we don't have time go go off chasing after-"

  "Paladin, if he can tell me where Shaun is, I-"

  "Soldier, we have to get back to the Police Station with these--"

  "Danse, _please_." And I could hear my voice wavering with tears. I could feel them stinging hard in my eyes... and I knew that he could see them to. I expected a lecture about being weak - I was certainly giving myself one. I knew better than to let my emotion get the better of me, but the knowledge that information about Shaun was so close, and I was just going to pass up on the opportunity? I couldn't do that - I wouldn't do that... and honestly, whether I wanted to admit it or not, I needed the man in the power armor and his help. I didn't know the Commonwealth, I didn't know anything about the damn place.

  I needed him to show me where to go, to come with me, to be my backup...

  I needed Danse.

  What surprised me was when he frowned, but his hand came forward. He touched my shoulder, gently, enough to catch my attention when my gaze fell. "Fine, Malcolm. I'll help you. But we're getting this operation over with as quickly as possible, understood?"  
   My chest clenched tight, and I pulled my eyes up to look at him. I knew they were sheened with tears, and I didn't care in that moment. I would have cried for him, if that meant that he would have helped me to find Shaun. "Yes, sir." And then softer, "Thank you, Danse."

   He paused, hesitated, as though he meant to say something. As though there was an infinite amount of things that he wanted to say... but he chose to simply keep his mouth shut. He nodded sharply instead, and then finally spoke. "Well then, soldier. Get some of the ammo out of our bags, we'll go find this missing person."

 

\--

 

  And so we had - and for a moment, I thought that Danse was going to throw the entire idea out the window, because it turned out that Nick Valentine wasn't a man, as one would consider him to be. He was... a synth. It was my first time running into one of them, and I had to say that it was something straight out of the old sci-fi movies. I couldn't believe my eyes, and Danse actually took a step in front of me while I stood there dumbfounded, putting himself between me and the perceived threat, as it were.

  But Nick Valentine seemed to know who we were looking for - a man named Kellogg... and Danse was willing to take the information that I so desperately tried to cling to. I didn't know what made him listen, or it if was the tone of desperation that was pouring from every fiber of my being. But when Nick said he knew where Kellogg had been staying, Danse was willing to check it out.

  He wasn't willing to go fishing for a key, though, because one sharp hit from his power armor fist sent it rocking open.

 

\--

 

 Somehow, we ended up fetching Dogmeat from the Police Station, where he'd made himself a happy home in the back of the area of the building. When Haylen and Rhys asked what we were doing, Danse answered simply that we were gathering intel on the Institute, and we would be back before the day was over. He lied, and he did so smoothly. There was no hesitation in his words, no desire to explain further that we were chasing a lead that had everything to do with my personal life.

  I was feeling affection for the Paladin, and it was hard for me to ignore the sensation. I wasn't even sure that I wanted to - he was putting himself out on the line for me, for the things that I needed. Maybe having someone to watch your back in this place wasn't so bad, after all.

 I didn't question his decision to keep the mission on the downlow, and Danse didn't question the brightness in my eyes as we walked out of the police station. We just trekked back to Diamond City, and showed Dogmeat the cigars and alcohol, and he caught the scent.

 As we set out after the scent, there was a part of me that wanted to ask Danse _why_. He had no reason to do this for me, he had no reason to come with me... he could have ordered me back to the police station. It's not like I would have listened, and I probably would have ended up getting kicked out of the Brotherhood of Steel before I'd even had a chance to really join up... but he didn't have to do this.

 Maybe it was all of those late nights we'd spent together, drinking in silence. Maybe it was the fact that he'd peeked at the demons that lived inside of me, and he'd seen them more than any other living person... maybe it was that.

  Or maybe it was just the fact that he knew what it was like to need answers, to need inner peace. To need _something._

 Whatever it was, I didn't question it. I didn't want him to rethink his decision. I just wanted to find this bastard Kellogg - his face was burned into my mind like a scar. I wanted to _eliminate_ it. I didn't like the violence that was burning in my chest, or the way that I wanted, more than anything to stamp the man out of existence. I could clearly _see_ him shooting Nate - he hadn't been my husband, but he'd been a friend, someone that I cared for and loved. He'd tried to protect Shaun, even though he wasn't his son.

 He'd died, trying to protect my baby. I was going to kill the man who did it - I didn't tell Danse that, because I didn't know how he'd feel about my murderous intentions... but I knew that they were true. My fingers twitched at the thought of it, my breath coming quicker as we followed his trail.

  I'm sure, when it came down to it, Danse would understand. At least, I hoped that he would. If he didn't, I was going to disappoint him. I knew I'd feel guilty about it, after he'd gone through so much trouble to make sure that I could find Kellogg... but at the same time, I couldn't and wouldn't care.

 Instead, I focused on the trail that Dogmeat led, until we came to an old Fort.

 "Fort Hagen." Danse confirmed for me, his brown eyes dubious. "I wonder how he managed to set defenses up in here. Hm." Idly, as though he didn't realize he was doing it, he stretched his fingers down and pet Dogmeat between the ears. The canine thumped his tail happily, and a smile crossed the Paladin's face. If I didn't know any better, I'd say he liked dogs. As soon as he noticed what he was doing, he straightened. "Good job, Dogmeat." He addressed him like he was talking to a soldier, like I would forget the fact that he'd been acting soft and sweet to him just a second ago. I would have smiled, had I not been so wound up for finding Kellogg.

  "Let's get going then. Stay here, buddy. We'll pick you up when we go out." I gave Dogmeat a pat myself, and then turned towards the stairs that I'd seen when we approached the building.

 I was silent when I moved, and Danse caught my stealth quickly. He stayed at the bottom of the stairs as I crept upward - he was smart enough to realize my tactics. I moved with my rifle carefully in my hands, my eyes warily sweeping from side to side. I'd made it to the stop of the stairs when the burst-fire of a turret caught me off guard. I had a second to locate where it was coming from, to turn my gun to aim... and then I heard it spill out from the other direction. I took a step back, and the railing of the rotten stairway gave out. I was tumbling through the air, mentally cursing the fact that I hadn't paid more attention-

  -but I never hit the ground. Instead, there was a loud _oof_ , and the sensation of a warm chest and strong arms wrapping around me. Danse hadn't had time to do much more than open his power armor and sling himself back, but he'd caught me... and I was curled protectively in his arms. I blinked up at him slowly, our proximity twisting and roiling with the fury in my belly to spread to something hotter. His eyes were so close, and my breath was caught in my chest both from the impact against his body and...

  Other things.

  "Be more careful, River. You could have broken something." He muttered the words out, standing with me as though I weighed nothing. He took a moment to carefully sit me on my feet, and then stooped to pick my rifle up and hand it back to me. My heart was thundering in my chest, and I found it difficult to make my voice work.

  "Thanks. Sorry." I didn't have the grace for anything else. My cheeks were flushed, and the adrenaline of the situation was making it harder than it should have been for me to just ignore the way that I felt. Luckily, Danse stepped back into his armor, saving me from my own fucked up brain. I was out for revenge, and I was focusing on the sensation of his strong arms, muscled and hard around me?

  Fucking Hell, River. Priorities!  
   "Are you alright?" His voice was still soft, and his eyes held _something_ that I couldn't quite ascertain. Whether it was worry or...

  "I'm fine. Sorry. Again. Let's go." This time, he followed me up the stairs as I went, and I could feel his watchful eyes on my back as we moved.

 

\--

 

I quickly learned, once inside of the building, that Gen 2 synths were an altogether different being than Nick Valentine. Even though Danse had judged him harshly, I could see that the things that we fought were an altogether different kind of being. I had no issue in sending a bullet straight into their bodies, so that their wiring and framework was exposed. I had no issue with Danse disintegrating them with his rifle, and a shout of, "For the Elder!"

  The only thing that I had was thoughts focusing to a pinpoint of palpable fury that ran a line along my body and straight to my center... because as we descended into the Fort, Kellogg began to speak to us. Taunts, teasing, trying to get us to turn back.

  I became more reckless with each syllable, until Danse finally caught my arm and pulled me up against the heat of his power armor. "Calm down, River." My name again, soft, pointed. Worried. "We'll get him. But you won't manage anything if you get yourself killed before we find him."

 I hadn't realized that my breath was coming quick enough to make me dizzy until he spoke - the cool cadence of his voice was a well of calm amidst the sweltering desert that was my fury. I had to raise my hand, grip his power armor. I had to close my eyes... and he kept my arm in his hand until I did. Finally, I opened my lids, nodding slowly.

 "Okay. I'm okay." And I let him take point.

 We trailed down, until Kellogg seemed to realize that he was trapped like a fucking rat. He invited us in, and it was the most dangerous thing that he could have done for himself.

  "Keep your eyes peeled for traps. I've got your back." Danse's voice, strong, cool, calm... and I trembled with my barely contained rage as we walked into the room.

  He stepped out from the shadows, and I recognized his face instantly - my gun shifted upward to point at his chest, even though his hands were up in the air. My voice didn't contain any of the shivering of my body as I spoke. It was cool, calm, like a honed knife slicing through the air and against Kellogg's body. I could see it hit against him, but it didn't change his expression.

  "Where's Shaun?"

  "Is that what you're going on about?" Kellogg arched one brow, causing the scar biting along his features to contort. "Well, I can't say I blame you - though I figured you'd be here about your husband."  
   "Nate wasn't my husband, you asshole. But you're right." I took three strides forward, so that the butt of my sniper rifle was against his chest. "It's about him, too. Now - I'm giving you one chance." I jerked my gaze up along his tall frame, so that my eyes connected with his own. "Where in the fuck is my son?"

   "He's around - you might have heard that he's a little older than you expected now." Nick had mentioned something about it, but I had dismissed it as the fact that Kellogg took children as a job. His words confirmed it, and my heart twisted furiously for it. Ten years - ten years of his life that I'd missed, and it was this assholes fault.

  "I will kill you where you stand if you don't give me an answer I like, Kellogg." I widened my eyes, "Look at me and tell me I'm lying."

  "Malcolm." Danse's voice was a warning, a soft iteration to the fact that we needed to get _information_ out of him before I went about blowing his heart through his chest and leaving a fist sized hole. His two synths prowled around us, their hands on their guns - I trusted Danse to have an eye on them.

 "I've got this, Paladin." My voice still held that same steely tone, but Danse didn't warn me again. I turned my full attention back to Kellogg. "Where is he?"  
   "Somewhere you'll never get to him. He's home, he's safe." I felt a low rumble starting in my chest. "He's at the Institute." My rifle moved in a flash, before I could stop myself. The butt of it twisted around, catching him in the chin before sweeping down to hit him in the stomach.

 He doubled over, and it was the right height for my knee to come up, giving a satisfying crunch as it connected with his nose. He let out a groan, and I heard the rifles of the synths rise.

  "Ease off, boys. She earned that one." He coughed through blood, his voice thick, and he looked up at me with eyes full of something that I couldn't quite touch. Kellogg seemed to be a troubled man, with more layers than I cared to peel apart. All I cared about was the surface, the layer that had taken Shaun, had stolen ten years from me, had callously taken Nate's life... and who was staring at me now as though anything that he could say or do would make one goddamn difference in what happened to him.

  I didn’t care that the synth’s still had their guns up. I didn't care about anything, except for the information in Kellogg's brain. "You need to give me something more than _home_ , Kellogg, because that's ten kinds of bullshit. His home is with me. Tell me how to get to the fucking Institute, if you're working for them." I raised my rifle again, and I pointed it at his chest. "Now."

  He stared at me for a moment, and I could see his death looming in his gaze - he knew it. I knew it. And his brows twitched together from it. "I really am sorry about your friend, girl. I didn't want it to be that way." He let out a sardonic laugh. "Hell, I didn't want a lot of it to turn out this way, but you need to believe that your son is in a better place."

  Something inside of me was screaming - some part of me that was still human and could _see_ the fear and pain in his eyes. It was begging me not to do this, to think about it before I pulled the trigger.

  But Shaun's blue eyes were in my mind, and Nate's soft gaze as he fiercely fought for my baby boy before being killed without hesitation. Rage overpowered pity. "Wrong answer, asshole."

  "I know." He moved for a stealthboy, and I pulled the trigger before he got the chance. I heard two shots fire off in a near perfect echo of my own, and I spun in time to fire two more at the Synth that was taking aim at Danse. They fell to the ground, and I let out a strangled cry of pain and fury.

  "Malcolm..."

  "Danse, don't." I ducked, searching through the bloody ruins of Kellogg's pockets. Something metal stuck from his ear, and I ripped it off, pocketing it for later - some kind of android attachment. Maybe it could be read for information. I pocketed his pistol, and shoved myself up and in the direction of his computer. Danse was silent as I sacked the room for all it was worth. My chest was burning by the time that I was done, and a lump forming in my throat.

  I turned, and I couldn't bring my gaze up as I did. "Let's get the fuck out of here." I didn't give him a chance to say anything. I just kept my hand stuffed in my pockets and made my way out of the building as quickly as possible. It was as I kicked the doorway to the entrance open that Danse caught up with me, his hand catching my arm and spinning me around.

  "River!" And I lifted my gaze at the insistence of his voice... I hadn't realized I was crying until his eyes widened, and his thumb came up to brush a tear from my cheek. I couldn't help myself - I nuzzled into that touch. I was feeling less than human. I'd killed Kellogg without hesitation, and those voices that had been screaming about my humanity in my chest were calling me a fucking monster now. He didn't move when I leaned into his palm.

  In fact, he leaned closer. The warmth of his hand was the only anchor to my humanity, and I wanted to lean into him. I wanted to _feel_ anything other than what I was feeling right now. I think he could see it, and his brown eyes were all the darker for it. His voice was a shade lower when he finally spoke. "River, I--"

  But whatever he'd been about to say was stolen by the sound of vertibirds, and then a voice echoing through the air. "Citizens of the Commonwealth, do not be afraid. We are the Brotherhood of Steel." Danse's attention instantly snapped upward, the moment stolen, and I turned with him. In the air, a giant ship hovered. In Danse's eyes, I could see reverence.

 "The Prydwen."

  It looked like the Brotherhood of Steel had finally arrived after all.

 

\--

 

The Vertibird ride from the Cambridge Police Station was something that I didn't enjoy. It reminded me of all of the rides that I'd taken with Braydon. Danse didn't mention the almost moment that we had at Fort Hagen, and I didn't bring it up, either. It had been inappropriate... but there was something comforting about sitting beside him as we approached the giant vessel that housed the Brotherhood of Steel and their fabled Elder.

  "Once we get on deck, you'll need to speak to Captain Kells." Danse's voice was soft, a warning - I think that he was trying to tell me to reel my personality in just a bit. I flashed him a small grin. I still felt a bit hollow inside, like my emotions had room to echo from the empty space that I'd carved out with Kellogg's death.  
   "You got it, big guy."  
   "Malcolm." Warning, again.

  "Sorry, Paladin." I corrected myself, and he nodded. I could see the concern behind his stern gaze, and I knew that he _wanted_ to talk. Maybe later.

  Probably not.

  Captain Kells was a strict man, and he didn't seem amused with my nonchalant attitude.

  "When am I going to get my own set of power armor?" I taunted, and Danse gave me an exasperated look over his shoulder.

  "When you've earned it, Initiate. You've done nothing to prove yourself to the Brotherhood of Steel, and Danse's word alone will not afford you any luxuries or special treatment." I opened my mouth to snap back, but he kept on.

  "Elder Maxson is expecting you - he's delivering a speech in the hull." Dismissed, just like that. I wanted to say something else, but Danse grabbed my arm, shaking his head slowly. I rolled my eyes - being a smart ass might have made me feel a bit better, but it was clear now was not the time. Instead, I followed him up a set of stairs and through a door.

  I could see the glass front of the airship - a room that opened up. Men and women were standing in two perfect lines. In front of them, a man stood with his back turned. It was clear that I'd missed most of his speech ribbing Kells on.

 "You're dismissed, soldiers." His voice rocked through me, and my brows snapped together. It sounded so...

  Familiar.

  "Come on, River. And please," Danse's voice was soft, urgent. "Try to restrain yourself. Elder Maxson is the best leader that the Brotherhood of Steel has ever had the honor of having. I'm putting a lot on the line vouching for you." _Make me proud_. He didn't say it, but I could hear it in his voice. I gave his hand a quick squeeze and nodded. We approached the room with the man's back still to us.

  "Elder Maxson." Danse's voice was official, and full of reverence. "Paladin Danse and Initiate Malcolm, reporting in."

  "Good. I was wondering when you'd make it up." The man turned, and my heart _stopped_. I could feel it skip a beat in my chest, and then try to rise up through my throat to paint shock against my tongue.

  The man who stood in front of me was _Braydon._ From his strong legs, his broad chest, his wide shoulders... to the sharp jaw and brilliant blue eyes that searched over my face and did a quick sweep of my body with a flicker of some strange emotion in his gaze. It was Braydon, and I couldn't _breathe._

  "We have much to report, Elder. We located an Institute runner, and Malcolm found a chip of some sort in his head. It may give us vital information on the Institute itself." I could only just make out Danse's words. My hand came out, grabbing his arm to steady the sway of my body. His eyes turned to me, and he realized instantly that something was wrong.

  "Initiate Malcolm?" It wasn't Danse who spoke, but ~~Braydon~~  Maxson. He stepped forward, blue eyes piercing as they fixed on my face.

  "I--" I couldn't speak. I could only look up at him with my entire body **_burning,_ ** because I'd never expected to see his face again this side of Heaven. "Sir, I--" My knees felt weak, and I tried to catch my breath.

  It was _impossible_ . My brain was trying to click, trying to process information that couldn't be true. ~~Braydon’s uncle. Roger Maxson.~~  Maxson - Maxson, and it sounded familiar, but I couldn't figure it out. ~~Shaun Roger. Roger Maxson.~~ _~~Braydon…~~   _ Maxson...

  No, _Braydon._ And my vision was swimming with dizziness and tears, because he was _right there_ , and I could _touch him_ if I just reached out my hand.

  "Initiate?" Again, he spoke, stepping forward so that I had to crane my neck to look at his face. He had a scar biting along his visage, but he was just as handsome as ever.

   _**~~Braydon~~ ** _ **~~.~~ **

  Maxson.

  I couldn’t breathe.

  "I'm sorry, I--" And I fell forward, losing myself completely. I had a moment to register the smell of leather, bullets, steel. Strong arms caught me against a broad chest, and he smelled nothing like Braydon, but it was Braydon's touch... and I fainted to the sensation of my dead lover's arms around me, and Danse calling my name.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And thus ends River's story, for the moment. (I may very well add more chapters to this as I go, though. So.) I'll pick up now with A God Amongst Men, Maxson's POV fic... and I think a fic from Danse's POV that picks up from here out. I hope that you guys have enjoyed! I've certainly loved writing it. From here on out, there is going to be so much in the way of love triangle, action, sexy-times, and angst. I can't wait. Thank you for coming along for the ride so far!
> 
> \--
> 
> I will be posting some of the chapters in the Danse and Maxson stories here, from River's POV. So, there will be some chapters following, and I will also link which chapter in the other stories it corresponds with. <3 Just to let people know!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Quinn: Wrath](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6648550) by [EgoDominusTuus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EgoDominusTuus/pseuds/EgoDominusTuus)




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